


On Core Beliefs

by elfriniol



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mage Trevelyan (Dragon Age), Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Mage-Templar War (Dragon Age), Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Post-Dragon Age: Origins, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sex, Slow Burn, cause like...of course :''), crazy mage hunter AU, other tagd to be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:40:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23071075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfriniol/pseuds/elfriniol
Summary: After the Fereldan Circle fell, one Templar had gone rogue on a mad quest to purge the world of magic. He had everything he needed - unshakable faith, will clad in iron, strength - and folly - of youth; no mage in Ferelden would be safe from him. The only thing he was desperately unprepared for was falling for one.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 25
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first published DA fic. Work in progress, tags to be added, a lot more angst and talks about religion incoming, as well as some steamy bits. Basically I ran wild with the DA:O rumor which says that Cullen goes kind of mad and starts hunting mages left and right because I was intrigued with it the first time I saw it. That said, this story doesn't really keep to canon, so if that's not your cup of tea, I suggest you look elsewhere. Anyway I'm very hype about this little project and would LOVE to hear any feedback. As it's a work in progress, some things may change on the go, and updates I can't promise on a regular basis as I work full time, but I'll try to do my best there (also hey, comments make me write faster, wink wink).

These woods only seldom saw travellers. Deer fed on the grasses and leaves growing by the darkened, barely beaten trail and only after they glimpsed a rider approaching through the trees did they dart away in shock. Birds overhead went on about their business undisturbed; one could make out the persistent knocking of a woodpecker, or spot the blue wing of an elusive jay if they looked hard enough. Not the rider though. Birdwatching was nowhere to be found on his agenda - it took much of his focus to lead his horse through the thickets and overgrown branches, to look out for stones and roots and slippery moss-covered rocks, all the while leaning forward so the beast's neck might shield his face from the wiry reach of outstretched boughs. The hostility of the place brought a certain comfort - he knew he was on the right track because only a vile heretic would choose such place for his desecrating rituals, a place unblessed and so far from the love of the Maker that even He might turn a blind eye to the blasphemy, carried out under moonless sky to the inhuman wails of prepared sacrifices, in a forest where no old coot's tale of demons and witches and unholy phenomena was ungrounded.

His mount bucked as it reached a steep fall to a ravine some ten feet below, and the rider took in his surroundings for the first time since entering the wild part of the woods. The trees were becoming scarcer, giving way to bushes and ferns in the lower levels; there were bright yellow clusters of celandine winking at him from the dim of the valley, the only speckle of colour as far as the eye could see. The ravine opened up to the north, and from what he gathered, a forest clearing was just beyond its mouth. Dismounting, he scanned the terrain for the best route and carefully started his descend, leading the horse. He would leave it at the bottom to graze, secluded enough but fairly close to the clearing. He had learned to keep close his means of escape, should the need arise. After all, he's but one man, and there's only so much one man can do against the denizens of crazed zealots. The deeper he descended, the greater anticipation befell him, and when he finally made it to the basin, he had to clench his fists to keep his fingers from twitching. With the ravine's end nearing, the sky was making itself known to him again. He welcomed its presence with a reverence akin to which he approached the altar of Andraste with before prayer. Its colour was gray, as gray as steel, and just as cold, detached like the gaze of the Prophet. There was water in the air, he could almost taste it; he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to savour it, only to spring them back open when it was not just the impending rain tickling his nostrils, but at the background the distinct, sulphur-like, accursed tang of magic.

They were near. The pursuit brought fruit. He reached for the saddle where his shield was strapped to it, unfastened the buckles and heaved it across his back. Next he opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out a bundle of twisted rags. It had become a sort of a ceremonial, an assurance before battle, to unwrap layer after layer his helmet that came to be dreaded among the godless rogues. There weren't many who had seen it and lived, and it played a role in quite a few ballads across Ferelden. If truth were to be told, it started to have an effect on him too, as if donning it would grant him a strength only heroes possessed in myths. As the rags gave way to polished bronze, he smiled, eyes catching at the embossed details of lion mane, row upon row of narrow flame-tongues trickling to the back, at the fierce beast's head settled at the helmet's brow. The Lion of Honnleath, one minstrel named him for it. Other Templars used to mock him - "that's no armor, that's a headdress" they would say. They weren't wrong, it was more a piece for show and not fighting, but he could not help himself and had worn it in every encounter with sorcery. Considering the results, it did not matter what he had worn.

A stronger, sharper whiff of spellweaving pulled him from his wistfulness. Haste was needed. With the helmet under his arm he left the horse to graze and turned toward the clearing. Strange lights flickered there, unnatural will-o-wisps, creation of three or perhaps four mages, he estimated. Facing them, he knelt into the forest floor, head bowed, right hand coming up to touch his forehead.

"Blessed are those who stand against the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter," rolled the prayer from his lips. Each word soothed him, took away some of the jitters he had been feeling ever since he had sensed hexes at work. The vegetation around him hummed, carried the soft pitter-patter of raindrops to his ears. Nature's cleansing ritual, just like his had been the prayer.

"I covered my face, fearful, but the Lady took my hands from my eyes, saying: 'Remember the fire.'" He looked to the distance. Above the tall grass smoke was wreathing in contorted snake-like formations. "You must pass through it alone to be forged anew."

He placed the lion helm in the grass. It stared at him with empty eye sockets like the gaze of death, as a premonition of what he was about to do. He slid a padded cap on his head, the ceremony from a moment ago exchanged for practicality, then the helmet. Standing, he readied his shield and, as if transformed, set out into the rain, the magic vibrating through the air making his blood boil.

  
  
  


*****

  
  
  


Ursa hated the woods. Her robes were torn and damp up to her knees and it seemed to grow heavier and wetter by each minute they tarried there. Her neck and hands itched from mosquito bites and she walked through so many spiderwebs that she could feel them cling to her face even though she had rubbed it clean with her sleeve until her cheek burned. Mud was caking at her boots and she had a feeling they soaked through in the incessant rain. Not to mention the sneezes. Those were the worst.

She just hated the blasted woods.

"Oh, cheer up, lovely. He'll show up soon enough."

Ursa's nose twitched as she turned to the man addressing her. Maybe she was too harsh to the woods, because she was pretty sure she harboured much greater dislike for Ferrand even when wading through elder bushes. "Mind your own business, would you?"

"So you do talk! Excellent," beamed Ferrand at her in mock excitement and she gripped the haft of her staff until her knuckles turned white. Forget the woods. Forget the spiders, or the mosquitoes. Forget the fact they were setting an ambush for a crazed mage-hunter who had slaughtered dozens of her acquaintances. Right now, she had her mind only for Ferrand and committing a grave crime. Which was definitely what he wanted; the realization made Ursa seethe with rage. "I was wondering what you might think of this place. Perfect for a little getaway for two, if you follow me-"

"Would you shut up, you cretin-"

"Both of you, quiet!"

Ursa remembered herself and her surroundings. They were four - her, Ferrand, Cantor, who never talked, and Ghislain, who led them, in the middle of nowhere, laying a trap for a Templar gone mad. A part of her could not believe Ghislain had talked her into it, and another part of her knew she would do it any other time again. At first, she didn't truly comprehend it, the gravity of the matter at hand, but now as the hour grew near, she recognized the fluttering shadow of fear over her.

Or, as she looked around, over them all, really. Cantor's silence was unnaturally strained and while Ferrand may have been blabbering his regular nerve-grinding nonsense, she saw how his eyes darted across the forest edge and how anxiety made his brow glisten with cold sweat. Ghislain may have done his best to not let it show, but Ursa knew his tell, however subtle it was; there was an engraving of an acorn on his staff, just above the grip. Acorn was the Montserrat family crest, and Ghislain had carved it into the wood as a reminder of a life long gone, of a life as a boy who was at the time just another son of a minor noble house and not a mage locked away in a circle tower. Ursa heard him speak of it with nothing else than fondness; to Ghislain, the only certainty he would ever know was family. And thus it came to be, whenever he was uncertain, that he would stroke the carved acorn with his thumb, tracing the familiar shape, not unlike his aristocrat father would stroke the fur of his favourite hound. As they waited at the clearing, she watched his hand reaching for the acorn's comforting feel. That was the only sign of fear Ghislain would let anyone see.

It started to rain, a soothing drizzle that was so out of place Ursa would laugh had the nervosity not render her mute. She looked up, to the infinite gray dome. Against it, the conjured spheres of light they had hung in midair as a lure shone bright like a lighthouse on a stormy night. With a wave of her hand, she added a new one, pale violet ribbon of energy sprouting from her fingertips like a seedling. It slowly rolled into a ball like yarn would and illuminated the grim company.

_We are four_ , Ursa reassured herself for a thousandth time. _We are four and he is alone. He may get one, maybe two, but not all of us_. She took a deep breath - inhale, exhale. _Should I die, I'll drag him down with me. Or at least maim him. Let's see how his witch-hunt goes without an arm or a leg._

She saw Cantor stiffen. He was looking behind her, and in the magical light she could see the colour draining from his face.

Ghislain's voice reached her as if from afar. "Remember what we practiced. Ferrand, get up front so you have a clear shot with that fire. Cantor covers your flank. Ursa, stay close to me, help me whip up lightning." She stumbled on numb legs to him. She felt like she would throw up any second. "Don't panic," Ghislain continued, so calm she wanted to strangle him, "he's only human."

In appearance, he was. Ursa watched the approaching figure trying to shut off the little voice in her head that screamed at her to flee. He was close, she could make out the Templar emblem adorning his shield as well as the dreaded helm. The certainty of his step scared her more than the sword hanging at his hip - no second thoughts, no fear, no mercy. This was the stride of the Grim Reaper and Ursa was in his path.

_If I die, I'll take him with me_. She no longer believed it.

They assumed battle stance, staves at the ready. He drew his sword, the sound cutting through the hum of rain, ringing in her ears, and with a shout broke into a run.

The first spell to leave her fingers bounced off the Templar shield and dissipated in thin air. The same happened to the bolt Ghislain shot out after her. Cantor conjured a barrier guarding the front and the first hit came from Ferrand as he hurled a fireball at the charging man. Ursa shielded her eyes from the heat of the explosion.

"Hah! Eat dirt, you piece of sanctimonious _shit_!" Spat out Ferrand. "Burn like bloody Andraste on the stake!" But Ursa felt something was off _,_ the fire still raged like an overgrown swarm of insect circling an irresistibly sweet litter, and soon enough her worry played out in front of her as the wall of fire tore in the middle and the Templar dashed out of it, unscathed.

She had never seen a single Templar disrupt a fireball.

Neither had Ferrand. "You son of a bark-yapping bitch-," and the stream of Ferrand's colorful insults cut off as the Templar overcame the barrier - he did not even stop _,_ only slowed; Ursa's heart shot up to her throat - shield posed to redirect the flame blast streaming from Ferrand's fingers and with a decisive gesture of his sword-arm brought the Silencing blast on Ferrand. Before any of them could react, the sword cut through Ferrand's staff which he thrust in front of himself on instinct and his body fell to the ground, blood sprinkling around. Something hit Ursa in her shins and she jerked back with a mortified gasp when she saw Ferrand's severed head at her feet.

Cantor was backing away.

"Cantor!" Ghislain bellowed. The Templar directed his attention at him, at Ursa standing at his side. She bared her teeth. _Not today._ Her hand shot up on instinct, gathering electricity from the air, and the Templar spurred forward. Ghislain did the same - when their attacker was just a step away they unleashed the built-up energy, a crackling flash of light followed by a deafening thunder.

This time the hit counted, but was not enough to stop the Templar in his tracks. Ursa took a blow from his shield and was thrown to the ground, disoriented. Ghislain stood his ground, but the attack left him drained, and the Templar parried Ghislain's staff on unsteady legs, stepping back. They exchanged a few blows, but the imbalance of melee experience showed soon enough; as Ursa scrambled to her feet, Ghislain was fighting a losing battle. Her strength to cast spells drained, she sprinted forth, drawing the knife she carried at her belt, her mind blank - no more fear or reason to hold her back, just blind rage and struggle to survive. Ghislain fell down and the Templar was about to deliver the final blow, focused on his target, enough so Ghislain knew he would not falter, enough so he let his shield-arm down to expose his face.

Enough so he forgot about Ursa.

She charged from the side, slashing with all her strength at the Templar's face; her blade met resistance, and Ursa's hand was steady. She heard a shout of pain - coming from _him._ In the split-second she gained, Ursa grabbed Ghislain's arm and summoned all her strength to teleport them away from the danger, to the tree-line marking the beginning of the forest.

"Ursa-"

"Get up! Move!" She was pulling at Ghislain's forearm, frantic, her nails digging into his flesh. They started to run into the growing darkness of the woods.

Somewhere from behind them came an inhuman shriek of pain, and another, and another - _what's going on when a man screams like that -_ and then abrupt, even louder silence.

"Cantor," Ghislain panted in disbelief.

"There's no helping him now." She felt like it was someone else talking. "Let's go, let's get out of here-"

Now it was Ghislain's hand clenching around her forearm. "No." His voice was firm. Ursa only stared in shock. "We must finish it."

"But-"

"No more deaths! That's what we said, that's why we've come here. It already cost Ferrand and Cantor, we can't leave and let him claim more of us. For their sake."

"He's going to kill us!"

"Ursa!"

He was shaking her now, as if she was asleep and he wanted to wake her, except this was no dream she could wake up from, but the brutal reality of her possibly dying a gory, violent death in the next ten minutes. She looked at him, piecing together a good reason for them to just leave this horrible place, but then she saw it - he was terrified too. And he was right that they came with a goal, a goal they had not yet accomplished.

She felt her lip quiver as she agreed. She hated it.

"We will make it through. I promise."

Ursa nodded. Empty words, but the comfort was real.

Ghislain looked around. The forest around them was eerily silent. Some thirty feet from them the forest floor ended in a steep cliff - they could hear the low rumble of water running. It might be a good spot for a trap, he thought, at least a better trap than the last one.

The rushing footsteps behind them cut his planning short. "Hide over there," he whispered, gesturing at the fallen tree to his right, halfway to the cliff. Ursa scurried off, slipping behind the massive trunk. He stayed behind, gluing his back to an ancient oak.

He wasn't the religious sort, but now Ghislain prayed that it would work and, if not himself, Ursa would walk away in one piece from this mess.

The Templar ran past him, well into the designated field for their second ambush. He stilled, looking around. The uprooted tree where Ursa was hiding was just to his right. Ghislain took in a sharp breath and unleashed all the elements he could command.

Accepting his challenge, the Templar blocked off his casting, but Ghislain noticed he was not as sharp as before. As his onslaught brought him closer, he could make out quite a lot of blood staining the man's face. His lip curled in a cruel smile. He had to buy Ursa dinner once this was over. Or maybe a necklace. She always eyed the pearl strings that were all the rage in Val Royeaux last summer.

He hurled a bolt of lightning and while the Templar managed to redirect the spell, it left him weakened and open. "Ursa! Now!"

She sprang from her hideout, hands already overflowing with magic - she channeled the energy into her surroundings and a fist of stones and rubble was racing toward its target. The Templar only managed to turn to face her, raise his shield on instinct, before the force of the impact sent him flying back, almost off the cliff. Ghislain went after him, with Ursa in tow.

For all the havoc he'd wrought, Ursa had to admit one thing - the Templar was a formidable fighter. Shield broken in two, the arm bearing it hanging limply, undoubtedly broken, he was still trying to lift himself from his knees, heavily leaning on his sword. He looked up, and for the first time they could see beyond the armor and zeal; beneath the helmet were the eyes of a young man, Ursa suspected younger than her, bleeding lip - deep red, heavy, _human_ blood - too pale skin, all set in an expression of utter shock.

And fear.

In another life, Ursa would have felt sorry for him. In this one, she poured all her remaining strength into the final bolt of purplish lightning. She savoured each moment of it, the feeling of power over life and death, over her fear, over the odds - on the way here, she did not dare think beyond this point, that she would emerge from this alive! She called on all of that, on her deep reserves, and with a final push sent him over the edge, down the chasm, away from her.

Gasping, she collapsed on the ground, landing hard on her rump, nothing graceful or glorious about her victory.

Ghislain went to the cliff. "No sign of him. The river will do the rest," he declared. Now that it was over, she could see him shaking. She was in no better shape.

"We did it," he stammered out as he sank next to her. " _You_ did it."

Ursa tried to answer but all that left her lips was an incoherent whimper. He nudged her shoulder, handing her a flask of whatever foul distillation he carried about. This time, she gladly accepted, the burn in her throat grounding her. "What _is_ this?"

"Dwarven scotch."

"Yuck." She drank again, then let him have it. "What of... the others?" They couldn't just leave them, or whatever remained of them, there.

"In a moment. I need to catch my breath."

She could not argue with that. Laying down on her back, she looked at the swaying trees above. The rain stopped. The forest hummed, oblivious to the battle that just took place.

Perhaps the woods had a certain charm, Ursa thought.

  
  


  
  


*****

  
  
  


On another, altogether different side of the woods sat a young woman in a solitary cabin, hunched over the only table she possessed, with quill in hand scratching at parchment. The workspace was cluttered - a basket, a wooden bowl, piles of dried herbs waiting to be stored away, an oil lamp, unlit, a jug for water and a battered cup to drink from. She barely had enough room to craft the words in such disarray. Another piece of parchment was propped up against the bowl and she kept glancing at it as she continued to write. A letter, written in neat script, familiar in its tone.

  
  
  


_Theia,_

_we're sorry you do not wish to join us, but as for me, I am not surprised. I understand healing has always been a priority to you, even at your own expense. Ghislain is a little less understanding, but you know him - when he finds a matter worth his commitment, he expects everyone around him to "see reason" and do the same. Don't hold it against him, he will come around soon enough._

_I've decided to help him, and while I'm touched by your concern, I haven't changed my mind. I can't. The loss this fanatic has dealt me, I can't accept it for what it is and move in my grief - I know what you're thinking, that they were your friends too, but I cannot deal with it the same way as you did. I respect your choice, and I pray you are safe wherever you're living your hermit life, that you will never run into him or any other Chantry zealot that spiraled out of control. If fortune favours me, I will make sure of it._

_We are departing tomorrow - me, Ghislain, Cantor and Ferrand (I still can't stand him, but for now I'll have to suffer his presence, for the greater good). I'll write again as soon as it is done. If you don't hear from me... You know what happened._

_Please, stay safe._

_Ursa_

_  
_   
  


The quill slipped to the side and left an ink stain.

"Dammit."

Ursa's writing was immaculate - Theia never quite understood how she did that. When Theia wrote, there were inevitable blotches and crossed-out words. The comparison never failed to make her feel awkward. Without further incidents she finished a sentence and read the message one last time.

  
  
  


_Ursa,_

_I know you are long gone, but I am writing anyway. I have faith there will be an addressee once I send the bird._

_Know that while I believe violence isn't the answer, a single day does not pass without me thinking of you and hoping you're alive. I hate the thought of you risking your life like this - you're a precious friend, and I am selfish. I don't care for Ghislain's noble causes, if he leads you to your death I am ready to go against my conviction and cause him unspeakable pain._

_I find there's little else to talk about, now that the future is so uncertain. I'm anxious to hear from you back._

_  
_   
  


She signed it off and stretched. As if it wasn't enough she had to concern herself with her own survival, Ursa decided to leave the safety of the Tower and go on a Templar hunt. Now, when the presence of mages like her and Ghislain was needed to negotiate the fragile peace between them and the order. The tension was visible anywhere - from the most forward-thinking metropolis to the muddiest, backwater village. There was no need to stall the process to finding balance.

Then again, Theia was hiding from it all as an apostate in the wilderness, so who was she to judge?

Stepping outside, she took in the crisp air of early autumn and focused. Creation magic always came to her easily, and through the years she mastered the craft that even senior enchanters stood in awe of her spellcraft. She murmured the incantation, felt the air around her hand quiver, first a ripple on a sleepy mountain lake, then a harp string thrumming with the promise of a tune to heal a broken heart, and then, all around it, encompassing it, heat-source that passed from the untouchable to the corporeal. A new life.

Theia opened her eyes and took a look at her conjuring - a sleek, black-feathered crow sitting on her wrist. She could never shake the feeling that all the birds she animated eyed her with suspicion, as if they knew how she had done it and disapproved of the act. She ran her fingertips down the crow's back, then her palm when it grew accustomed to the touch - all the apology she could give for involving it. That was the tragedy of animals, getting involved in human affairs.

She watched the bird leave with her letter tied to its leg until it was but a black dot against the clouds. A somber thought occurred to her that it might be the last one she sends. While she knew of Ursa's prowess in battle, as well as Ghislain's, a Templar was a Templar. A fight between a mage and a mage-hunter was like a fight between a cat and a mouse. Not that the mouse would be doomed to perish in any encounter with a cat, but the chances of it surviving were not exactly those statistics considered as significant. And Templars were made to kill her kind.

Theia sighed and went back inside. She was thirsty, and her water jug empty. She picked it up and set off to the stream nearby.

Walking through the forest helped her clear her head, and the sight of the water running never failed to lift her spirits no matter how crestfallen she might have felt. Further up the hills, this stream was a rushing rapid complete with waterfalls - she occasionally made trips there, just to admire the sights. This time of year it was usually calmer, tamed by the summer heat that hit this part of Ferelden hard. Theia could not wait until the rainfalls made it sing again. Soon, she thought as she knelt at the water's edge. Soon.

It was only now that she took in her surroundings enough to notice the corpse lying on the rocks where the stream meandered.

She almost dropped the jug, remembered to tighten her grip just before it slipped out of her hands. Her second impulse was to flee, but the healer voice in her head commanded that the corpse may not, in fact, be a corpse yet and that she is the only one who can help, and because she could not argue with it, she put her jug aside and went to check the body.

He - not a corpse, a man - was pale, and an ugly, swollen cut bisected his upper lip. Theia put her hand against his uninjured cheek, then slid it to his exposed throat in search of pulse, and soon enough she could feel it weakly beating against her fingers.

She did a quick check - if the river washed him up here, he must be badly bruised, perhaps with a bone or two broken, but other than the cut she could not see any injuries. The padded cap probably saved his life. He didn't have any belongings - there was an empty scabbard at his belt but looking around, Theia could see no sword. She could however, see a glinting piece of metal in the stream, stuck against a rock. Part of his armor? She squinted trying to make up the details - an oval shape, rows upon rows of somethingembossed into its surface, perhaps made of bronze...

The pull of the water freed the object from the riverbed and as it sailed down the stream, it turned towards her. A helmet. And from its crown a lion stared back at her.

Theia rushed to her feet and stumbled backwards, her heart threatening to break through her ribs. There was only one lion helmet coming to her mind, and Ursa mentioned the region in one of her letters, and now he was lying here, right at Theia's feet, broken and bloodied, and Theia-

_Is Ursa alive_?

_Should I-_

She felt ashamed of that thought, even through her panic. She has never used her magic to hurt someone, not even in self-defense - she took great pains to avoid situations which might demand that of her. Having that choice might have been a luxury.

She could leave him here. She would not kill him - she would just pretend this never happened. It did not matter she was the only one to witness this. It did not matter she was the only one who could act. She was also absolutely sure anybody else would do the same in her place.

But she was not anybody else, and the only decisions she had to live with were her own.

She wanted to cry.

Slowly, on shaking legs, Theia made her way back to his - theTemplar's - body. She checked his pulse again. Still there.

"Please, don't make me regret this," she whispered to no-one in particular. Today the water offered her no solace.

  
  


  
  


*****

  
  
  


That night Theia gathered everything from the rare herbs to the few scriptures in her possession that might scream magic, wrapped them in rags and stowed them at the bottom of a chest. While her unexpected guest was far from conscious, she figured it wouldn't hurt to be cautious. While she did not own any robes or a staff or even anything remotely magical, the letters from Ursa were a dead giveaway, and she found easier to pretend she had no alchemical recipes and studies on the properties of corpse gall than to make up an explanation of how she got a hold of them. She decided she would go around this situation by playing dumb. She would establish herself as a former nurse, as an apothecary trading with the nearby village, both of which were not exactly lies, but strong half-truths Theia could retain for no matter how long. She did make trips to the village on the southern slopes to trade. The villagers merely had no idea she was so much more than a herbalist.

He would have no idea either.

She sat at her table. The candle she lit earlier was almost gone and the fire in the hearth was dwindling as well. In the red half-light, the room looked cozy and peaceful, even if on the inside Theia felt anything but. Every glance at her bed caused her anxiety to spike up.

She spent the entire afternoon looking after the man she had brought in. It took her nearly an hour to remove his clothes so she could check him for wounds; he was heavily bruised, and his left forearm was broken, but other than that she could not see any more injuries. She had sewn his split upper lip - given the equipment and conditions she worked in, she was quite satisfied with her work, but it was certain there would be a visible scar. She wished she could have gotten to it earlier.

Theia's thoughts halted. Since when did she wish she could help a murderer?

The candle flickered and died. Sighing, she moved to her make-shift bed; of course she left her normal bed to the Templar - no, to the patient; burrowed under the blankets so she could pretend she was anywhere else than stuck with a strange man in the middle of nowhere, and tried to fall asleep.  
  
  


  
  


*

  
  
  


On the second day the nightmares started.

Theia was outside hanging the man's clothes she had washed earlier to dry when she heard a strangled cry. She hurried to the cabin, half-dreading the possibility he might be awake, but instead she found him weakly thrashing on the bed and begging for someone, or something, to stop. His skin glistened with sweat and when she put her hand to his forehead he was burning with fever.

She plastered a cloth rinsed in cold water to his brow and sat the edge of the bed. If she used magic, she would be able to soothe him more, but that was out of the question. There was no telling if he would remain unconscious, and Theia was already walking on eggshells. He would have to brave through this alone. After all, weren't Templars known for their extraordinary willpower?

It passed as suddenly as it had begun. The last of his words died down and he seemed to slip back into a dreamless sleep. Theia caught herself stroking through his tousled, matted hair.

Shaking her head, she got up to finish her chores.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Third day, his fever went up and the cut festered. While Theia tried her best at cleaning it, the circumstance worked against her - she had next to no idea for how long he had lied there in the brook and the distillation she had at her disposal was not ideal for such a task. She spent most of her time watching him. Between the nightmare fits and his near-constant shaking it was all she could do. The sun outside was barely reaching through the clouds and her room was shrouded in mute gray. She dreaded the nightfall.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


It was only after midnight, but to her it felt like a year. She could not sleep - it was either his thrashing or screaming that landed her back to what became her reality with a crushing blow. His dreams must have become more violent, and Theia did not dare imagine what they entailed. He was pale, drenched in sweat, shivering, delirious.

He was dying. Wasn't that what some part of her hoped for?

Her throat constricted with a strange mixture of dread and regret. There was nothing vindicating about watching somebody slipping beyond the threshold in agonizing fits of pain, even if that somebody wanted her dead.

So she sat at his side, quietly suffering with him, a Templar. Fate had a strange sense of humour.

"Get away from me, demon!" He shouted, unseeing eyes fixed at nothingness, his healthy hand gripping Theia's right forearm hard enough to bruise. She yelped in surprise, but the pain brought her back to her senses. Caution she threw to the wind - that was a privilege for a time that needed no swift decisions, a time when life wasn't at stake. And if this turned against her, she was fairly confident at dealing with an incapacitated attacker. She made up her mind. Maybe she could not heal him, but she could make the passing painless.

With that thought, she put her other hand on his clammy forehead, and sent a pulse of magic to her palm, her fingertips, felt the ripple travel through him. A sheen of frost spread over her skin and, holding her breath, Theia watched as the soothing spell took effect, how the tension was slowly giving way to exhaustion, how the conjured night-terrors dissipated, how his grip on her loosened until his hand fell back onto the blankets, all struggle from it gone. His breathing evened out and his eyes fell shut. For the first time after two days he appeared at peace.

Still touching him, Theia whispered a spell, a little incantation she had used on terrified children to keep their fears at bay. A silly thing, more make-belief than magic, but it always worked. Small comforts she could give.

"The next day," she said to the night, voice raw, "the next day will decide. I hope you're as strong as they claim you to be. From where I'm standing, you're not so frightening." She barked a bitter laugh. "Ursa would probably kill me."

She watched over him until the light outside warned her of the imminent sunrise, with no change, when at last rest came to her.

  
  
  


*****

  
  
  


The first thing he saw was a spider dangling from the ceiling. It was bright and his head hurt, his body ached all over. Then the existence of a ceiling made him realize the ceiling had a house to go with, the house a housekeeper, and the housekeeper, at this moment, had him. Which was strange, since the last things he remembered were sleeping under the stars, sloping hills, the scent of pines carried by the wind, running water, magic-

The heretics!

Suddenly wide awake, he got up - or tried to when pain stopped him mid-motion. He couldn't move his left arm and only now noticed the bandages and brace that were fastened to it from elbow down. His ribs hurt, and as he grimaced at the dull ache, his upper lip pulled at a wound he was not even aware he had. Panic gripped him - where was he? He should have been dead, or left for dead.

After a minute of struggle that felt to his abused form like hours he succeeded at lifting himself up on his uninjured arm, leaning on his elbow, when footsteps caught attention, fast and beating at the wooden floor, and as soon as he looked the newcomer was at his side, firmly pressing him back down.

"Now, lie down," she said. There was a certain air about her he couldn't place, something familiar and yet not. Her expression was kind, but her presence seemed to him commanding, as well as her hands trying to subdue him.

"You don't understand, I must-"

"You must rest," she interrupted him, taking a piece of cloth she had slung over her shoulder.

"There were apostates-"

"And now there are none. Whatever happened is past."

He wanted to argue, but a sharp sting in his arm urged him to reconsider. Perhaps there was something to her words. Even if he did manage to get out of bed, the state he was in was far from posing a threat to a practice dummy, let alone those who had put him in it. Think before you act - that was the most frequent reprimand he got from his mentors back at the Circle. A cold trickle of shame made its way through his consciousness. He learned nothing.

Her voice pulled him out of that deprecating string of thoughts. "What should I call you?"

Not only incorrigible, but he was being rude as well - how could he forget to introduce himself to someone who showed him kindness? And a lady no less. "Forgive me," he stuttered, feeling his cheeks grow warm. "I am Cullen of the Templar order. I... Thank you, for your hospitality. I am forever indebted to you."

There was amusement in the wrinkles around her eyes. He could not blame her. "Well, I think I can forgive you this breach of proper etiquette, given we're in the wilderness and you have other things to worry about. I am Theia," she said. "Do you think you can get up if I help you? I made some soup earlier, and you should eat at least a little."

She seemed like out of this world; an unlikely saviour Cullen wasn't sure he deserved. He hadn't spoken to anybody much since the Circle fell, and this sudden amiable presence was a little too good to be true. Perhaps it was a trial and his destiny to undertake it. After all, the Maker worked in mysterious ways.

He nodded, trying to raise himself on his good arm once again. Theia, good on her word, wound her arms around him and with surprising strength pulled him up to lean against the wall. Cullen hissed as another pulse of pain shot through his left forearm.

"Yeah, that. It's broken, I'm afraid," Theia stated as if she were talking about the weather, smoothing out the strip of fabric she had brought with her. "You can count yourself lucky. The stream is rather wild in the hills."

"The stream?"

"I found you washed up on its bank not far from here," she said as she fastened the cloth behind his neck, his broken arm a dead weight in the simple sling. "Does breathing hurt?"

"I- no, not really-"

"Your ribcage is bruised, that's why I'm asking. If you feel any pain later on please tell me."

"I-"

"Oh, and I had to sew that cut on your face," she added in a rush. Cullen was so baffled by the whole exchange he could only stare. "So try not to rip it open by accident or something. I sure hope you don't mind scars."

She helped him to his feet; Cullen hated being so weak that he had to lean onto her to save himself from losing balance. His state of undress didn't help either - at least he still had his breeches on. She was warm against his flank as they stumbled to the table with a chair nearby, and when she moved away so he could take the offered seat, Cullen shivered.

"Just a second," Theia said before scurrying away. He wanted to protest but she was back soon enough, throwing a blanket over his shoulders.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

She made her way toward a large iron pot hanging in the fireplace. Now that Cullen had mostly recovered his senses, he noticed the enticing smell lingering in the air. For the first time he took a good look around the room - a small, cluttered space, though well-kept. There were bundles of herbs hanging to dry in every suitable place one could think of, a surprising amount of books and parchments strewn over shelves, a bit of tools and everyday necessities, a chest.

He also noticed they were decidedly alone. "You live on your own here?"

He thought he saw her pause while pouring a bowl of the deliciously smelling broth. "Why, yes. You're not afraid of me now, are you?"

"I- no, I didn't mean to offend," he sputtered, embarrassment hot on his face. "I could not help but wonder how you brought me here."

"Oh, that I had help with," she said as she set the bowl and a spoon in front of him. "There is a village not too far from here. I ran there after I found you, and we brought you here together."

He felt suddenly so hungry that he paid no attention to how she looked anywhere else but at him. The spoon in his hand was trembling and Cullen prayed he would be able to retain some of his dignity by being able to feed himself. That, and the blade wound made eating such an arduous task that by the time he was scraping the bottom of the bowl, he was exhausted.

Theia watched him from across the cluttered table. She looked again amused. "I take it you're satisfied with the food?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely. Thank you."

"Fereldan tastes. So simple. No offense."

"Where are you from?"

"Free Marches. Ostwick, to be precise. But enough chat," she declared, looking at how he was clutching the blanket to his frame, "you should get to bed before you topple over. You have enough injuries as you are."

As full of questions as he were, Cullen was glad she could see how bone-deep tired he was. She helped him to his feet, guided him to bed, he trying to forgive himself for burdening her again, but all resentment left his mind the moment his head hit the pillow.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


That night he had a dream. It was hazy, disintegrating at its edges, weaving in and out of his consciousness, like a silk thread on the finest brocade. Unlike most of his dreams, this one was not violent or terrifying - more like a vision, the same kind he sometimes experienced when deep in contemplation in a chapel. Serene. Almost as if the Maker heard his prayers begging for peace.

In the dream, he saw tall, majestic trees, so imposing they just as might have been the pillars holding the sky in its place. Looking up at their crowns, he felt a wave of vertigo wash over him. Next to them, he was nothing.

He sank to his knees. Rustling leaves and dry twigs below. And in front of him, a circle of weather-stained stones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update. Yes, I'm slow :'D sorry it's taking so long. But it's not abandoned! I'll try to post the next chapter sooner than in 3 months (damn).  
> I hope you all survived/are surviving the quarantine ok.

In the two weeks that followed Theia, to her infinite surprise, learned that the mage-hunter she decided to harbor was a gentleman. The moment he was lucid enough to notice that he was occupying her bed and she was sleeping on the floor, he started apologizing with a fervor of a chantry sister caught in an illicit act and insisted they switch, effective immediately. It didn't matter Theia explained the obvious reason that he needed it more than her to recuperate, Cullen would hear none of it.

"I won't let a lady sleep on the doormat," he claimed. Theia rolled her eyes and set to changing the sheets.

He had also grown restless. The days after fending off the worst he spent either sleeping or resting, and so as soon as his state allowed it, Cullen itched for something to do. That one of his limbs was ruled out of any activity did little to put him off. Theia suspected he would prove a difficult patient, with how tough and up-and-about he presented himself, and maybe a little careless for his health, but then she recalled how common it was to see him stir from an unsettling dream, and she softened her judgment. Perhaps it was less silly heroics and more the need to occupy the mind with a sweet dose of distraction - from what, Theia could only guess. So she took pity on him - again - and let him help her around the house, even if the help didn't account to much, due to his injury. That was secondary.

For his first outing, she asked him to help her with water. She took the large jug, the very same as on that day, an empty bucket for Cullen to carry, and they set out for the creek. It was sunny, warm - the last breath of summer to seep into their bones. The stream bubbled in the distance, and were it not for the strange company, this would be a day Theia would have very much liked.

They walked in silence until the running water was within their reach. Theia filled the jug, but Cullen just stood there on the bank, looking around. "This is where you found me, then," he said at last. He seemed a little lost, in more ways than one. Theia felt a wave of sympathy.

"Yes, a little way up the stream." She pointed to the spot where days upon days ago, she checked his pulse and sentenced herself to this conversation. "As I said, you were lucky."

For a moment longer he stared at the stream, then at the woods and sloping hills beyond. Finally he sighed, settling to fill the bucket. "I guess I was."

Maybe she was, too - Cullen didn't question her further on how he ended up in her care, nor came to his senses while she moved him to her cottage with the help of magic. She dreaded to think how many more lies it would take for her to simply be around him, and how many she could keep track of before it all crumbled. Her luck wouldn't last forever, and he was a trained Templar. It was a matter of time. Like the stream racing to the river to reach the rolling seas, Cullen would too come to the conclusion.

She helped him handling the bucket and started the walk back. She could manage the time, she thought. The barest, necessary amount of time before he would be on his merry way. To probably slaughter more mages, Theia's mind supplied, and she mentally rebuked herself for going down that trail of thoughts. She had to concentrate.

Survival. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was almost inside the hut when Cullen spoke again. "Don't the woods seem a little odd?"

Theia turned to him, trying to keep a neutral expression. There was a possibility he could sense magic, from her or her surroundings, despite her effort to purge everything and herself of any residual aura and hanging up bundles of dried lavender and thyme, their scent strong enough to stir the dead. "How so?"

"As if," he paused, scanning the treetops. Then he met her eyes and for a split second Theia felt the ground tilt under her feet, but he merely shook his head and barked a short laugh of disbelief. "I don't know. As if there are eyes. Maybe I hit my head a little harder than you thought."

With that he went inside and could not see the relief palpable on Theia's face. She glanced at the trees, making out a patch of raven feathers here and there winking at her through the foliage. She would have to be more careful with the birds.

  
  


*

  
  


Not long after, as if she jinxed it, came a letter from Ursa. This time too luck favored her - when the cawing rook appeared gliding through the air, Cullen lay sprawled on the blanket nest she had piled as an excuse for bed and fast asleep. Theia offered her arm; as soon as she removed the tube from the bird's leg she was shooing it away. It looked at her as if offended, pinched her index finger in an obvious show of displeasure and soared to the treetops.

None of it made Cullen stir. Glancing at him through the open doorway, Theia rolled out the parchment.

_My dearest Theia,_

_we made it! I can't even put it to words. It was hard-fought, and only me and Ghislain live to tell the tale, but I feel so relieved the bastard's dead and gone. He almost had me at one point, and at another I almost felt a hint of remorse for dealing the final blow, but then I thought not today - today we prevail! And we did. It won't bring our friends back, but it won't take any more from us as well. I am happy I am writing this knowing that you are safe and that he will never endanger you-_

Theia had to pause reading - the irony of fate was suddenly too much to bear. How on earth was she going to look into Ursa's face again? She had undone everything Ursa strove for the past several months. Worse - she had ensured a continued existence of a threat to her and hundreds of others. Ghislain once criticized her for her compassion, and now, for the first time ever, Theia acknowledged he may have had a point. It was a cruel thing to say, but mercy was, at this time and age, a privilege. A privilege Theia may not have possessed.

The rest of Ursa's letter was a blur. She was restless, itching for solution. Before she knew it, Theia was standing over the sleeping Templar, her frame throwing a shadow on him where the late afternoon sun hit her back through the doorway - and wasn't that a fitting imagery, her absorbing light and casting him into darkness, from the illuminated world of reason and familiarity into a forever shifting nightmare realm. A disciple of chaos looming over the defender of the just who is destined to be at a disadvantage. Good and evil - the eternal struggle.

He was motionless, still so weak from injuries; Theia could just flick her wrist this way or that to rectify the mistake she made, all those days ago by the brook. Ursa would surely be thrilled to hear how she finished what she had started, and her letter was so heavy in her hand.

Outside a magpie cackled and the Templar - Cullen, his name was Cullen - shifted in his sleep, and it was as if a spell lifted. Her heart was racing, her hands shaking, her breath caught in her throat when she realized she was so close to doing the one thing she abhorred, and how logical and beneficial it seemed to her at the moment. Disgust welled inside her, shame trickled down the back of her neck in drops of cold sweat. She was a healer. She had vowed to protect and preserve life, not to take it. Without judgment.

She picked up a flint. On the tenth attempt managed to light a fire at the hearth, and fed Ursa's letter to the flames.

  
  


*

  
  


"I'm going to the village today to barter - would you like to come with me?"

Cullen looked from his breakfast at her. The cut on his lip was improving fast - Theia had removed the sutures the day prior, and while it still looked a little raw, and would greatly benefit from the simplest healing spell, it was mending nicely. It would scar, but not in a bad way; when Theia teased him about the rugged charm of minor facial wounds he would wield from this moment on, Cullen blushed all the way to the tips of his ears, which, if she was honest, was rather cute. She suspected she would have some fun with that - a game of sorts, counting how many times she could make him turn red or stutter each day. Hermit life was a little dull after all, she would take any entertainment, and she definitely wasn't above making a sheltered chantry boy flustered.

"Of course. What do you trade?"

"Mostly herbs and salves. Some poultices. Things the villagers can't make for themselves, which doesn't leave many opportunities."

"Where did you learn all this? Surely not in isolation?"

"I travelled a lot, before the Blight." Between the Ostwick Circle and wherever her healing was deemed useful, but Cullen didn't need to know that. "Then when the darkspawn appeared, I volunteered as a nurse."

"That is commendable."

"Is it? Most people I know said it was crazy."

"The line between the two may be thin, sometimes."

Theia measured him. Was this maybe how he justified what he was doing? "Perhaps. Where were you during the Blight, if I may ask?"

His expression darkened, and he was silent for a long while. Only when Theia gave up on hearing the answer did he reply. "At Kinloch Hold. The Fereldan Circle had its own troubles at the time."

Of course Theia heard the rumours - but only rumours. Neither she or any of her friends were there when it happened, so she could only guess. She knew, however, that whatever happened there was enough to mark a man for a lifetime. "Those were turbulent times."

He snorted. It sounded so bitter, so foreign when so far she heard from him mostly thank yous and apologies. "That's one way of putting it, but magic is still tearing this world apart."

From now on, Theia knew she would have to weigh every word. "I know you are a Templar, but isn't that a little exaggerated? There are wars and suffering caused by tyrants and only a handful of them are mages."

"But magic leaves in its wake incomparable destruction - no-one should have that kind of power," he exclaimed, and judging by the fervor that tinted his cheeks crimson again, only this time Theia would call it anything but cute, he believed it, with such conviction that would not be swayed. "Mages are a wildfire waiting to happen."

While biased, Cullen didn't strike her as entirely unreasonable. She could work with that, with logic. "I've met some, in my time as a nurse. I've seen magic heal wounds that would have otherwise been fatal."

"That is no excuse."

"I don't claim it is," she added, closely watching his reaction. "All I meant was that while magic is dangerous, it can also help us a great deal. And does not magic exist to serve man?"

Cullen huffed, but said nothing. Theia poured all her willpower into containing the smirk that was threatening to break on her face. "This philosophical approach does little to comfort those who lost their life to blood mages," he said at last, returning to his meal.

And what of those who lost their life to a misguided knight, Theia wished she could say without dealing with the consequences. "I speak from experience. I'm not that naive to think magic is harmless, but I've seen it used for good."

"I envy your experience then," he simply said. Theia left it at that. She prodded him enough for one day, and since they were sharing a room that was bordering on cramped with one person living in it, let alone two, she would not push her luck. She offered her opinion, and it was somewhat accepted. Thinking about it that way, it couldn't have gone better.

The rest of the morning went by without any more incidents. At least, before they made it to the village market - there it was another story. Many of the villagers eyed Cullen with poorly concealed curiosity that inclined toward wariness. Theia could not blame them, they were used to seeing her alone. Cullen's battered state didn't add much to looking trustworthy either. She rather started thinking on how she would introduce him when somebody inevitably asked.

Of course, the question came way too soon.

"Oh dear, who's the dashing rogue?" Asked Aoife, a local baker Theia usually liked, her voice a whisper that was just too excited for Theia's liking. "Do these grow in the woods as well?"

Theia couldn't really blame her - the village talked about everything and anything. "He's not a plant you know."

"What is he though? He looks a little," Aoife paused, eyeing Cullen as he was browsing a different stall. Then she met Theia's eyes and in an utterly unnecessary conspiratorial whisper finished: "Wild."

"Seriously," Theia said, grimacing as if the conversation pained her, and perhaps it did. True - Cullen still had his arm in the sling and he hadn't shaved once since Theia took him in, sporting now a full beard which, combined with the unruly curls that were his hair, did make him look a little feral, not to mention the barely healed cut and that he carried himself as if he were wearing the full Templar regalia. Many of the townsfolk gave him a wide berth, no matter how polite he was when he actually spoke. She could have anticipated how this would look to an outsider, and that perhaps Theia would now be the center of the village gossip for the next week or so. "The one time I don't wander in alone, and it's all everybody seems to talk about?"

Aoife laughed. "You're not that famous."

"That's beside the point! We're not," she was desperately trying to come up with a suitable word. The look of scrutiny Aoife subjected her to did not make it any easier. "Involved, or however you want to call it. I found him wounded, so I helped."

Aoife giggled - actaully giggled! - glancing at Cullen as if she knew something Theia didn't. "I see."

"I'm not talking about this anymore, just give me the damn bread."

More laughing, but Aoife did as she was asked. "You know, had it been anyone else, I wouldn't believe it, but knowing you always find the time for treating any number of scraped knees around here, I suppose you did the same with him."

More huffing from Theia's side, but since Cullen was making his way toward them, she decided to forgo any verbal commentary. Aoife greeted him with a warm smile, and from the corner of her eye Theia thought she could see Cullen's cheeks turn pink. She bit the inside of her cheek - was that really all it took? A woman's smile? Cullen was more out of this world than she had first thought.

She managed to introduce them without any hassle, then stowed the bread into the backpack Cullen insisted on carrying for her, and steered him away from Aoife before her luck ran out. She managed to sell or exchange most of what she had brought, and as far as groceries went, she believed she had bought enough to last some time. "Do you need anything here?" She asked Cullen before they would leave the marketplace. "I think I'm all set."

He shrugged. "Not really."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

His cheeks flushed again, this time from another kind of embarrassment. "I don't exactly have much coin."

"Wait, if you need something I can-"

"That's out of the question," he interrupted her. Truth be told, Theia was increasingly growing annoyed with Cullen's perception of acceptable behaviour. "You've already done enough for me," he added a bit softer.

"Cullen, I found you half-dead in the woods, don't you think you could be a little less harsh to yourself?" From the way he clenched his jaw at her words, she suspected she would do best if she dropped it, but she was not known to give up easily. "Out in the wilderness, you don't have to be the knight in shining armour and the embodiment of chivalry."

He tensed up. "But that's the only thing I have ever been."

Theia found she could not really say anything to that.

They continued in silence, passing the scarce houses on the outskirts of the settlement, when the sounds of raised voices startled them enough to look for their source.

At the last house, a stocky, graying man was pulling a boy who could not have been older than fifteen by his ear across the yard to the front door, undoubtedly a father and son, yelling over each other without abandon. "What were you thinking, stealing Templars' horses? Who in all hells did you get your brains after boy, because it definitely isn't from me or your mother!"

"I found it!" Came a shrill reply accompanied by wildly flailing arms. "It was there in the woods, it would starve!"

"Tell that to the Templars! Andraste's tits, do you know what could happen to us if they find out?"

The gory description of what would happen to a horse thief and his family got muffled as they moved the argument inside. Theia felt sorry for the boy, enough so that the bigger picture eluded her up to the moment when Cullen whistled on his fingers beside her, and then her suspicion slowly turned into reality as the sound of hooves beating at the ground in a gallop steadily grew louder and a lean, chestnut mare sprang from behind the house - only she didn't stop there and was barreling directly at them.

Theia hastily stepped back. She wasn't exactly on good terms with horses - from her perspective, it always seemed too easy for them to trample her. Cullen turned to look at her, eyebrows raised in surprise, but his grin did not falter, and seeing him for the first time wearing an expression of unbridled joy stirred something inside her. "I thought I lost her," he said as if that explained everything, and well, Theia supposed it did, but that didn't make the horse that stopped to a standstill to nuzzle at Cullen's shoulder any less intimidating to her. She found the courage to take a step closer when it was clear the beast would not move anytime soon, and surely Cullen would not let it harm her. At least some certainty could be drawn from his ridiculously old-fashioned manners.

None of them noticed the angry father and punished son until they were standing right in front of them, both of them looking various degrees of mortified. "I'm so sorry, ser," started the man, sweat beading on his brow and short of breath, "you see, my son found the horse up in the hills abandoned, he meant no harm-"

"Be at ease," Cullen replied, rubbing the horse's muscular neck. "I'm only glad I found her."

"Just how glad-," the boy started saying before his father swatted his head hard enough for Theia to hear his teeth click.

Cullen either didn't care or failed to notice. "She didn't happen to have a saddle on her when you brought her here?"

"Right, ser, it's right this way, behind the house. The fool boy was grooming her when I found out, we'll return everything," the man drilled on, breathing fast and talking even faster. He led them to the garden where, true to his word, a saddle, complete with saddlebags that looked like they still possessed their original content, was lying on the ground. Without asking, the villager helped Cullen - or rather did all the work for Cullen - tacking up the horse, looking all too eager to put this encounter behind him. Theia watched them from a safe distance, willing the animal to disappear just as fast as it had spurted into her life.

It didn't work.

Before turning to leave, Cullen reached into one of the saddlebags and dug out a handful of silver coins from its depths. "For your trouble," he explained when the man was too stunned to react to his outstretched hand, but took the money in the end. Theia was certain the poor fellow just wanted them gone at this point.

Back on the road, Cullen looked visibly happier than earlier that day, or any other day Theia had seen him for that matter. She supposed he had a right to be - knights were not known to be content without horses, and Cullen looked more than content now that he was tugging the mare along by its bridle. It was as if the beast's presence had restored Cullen back to health better than any spell Theia might have woven. She groaned.

"What?"

"Whatever are we going to do with a horse?"

The horse in question chose that moment to snort as if it could understand it was being talked about. "Don't worry about it, she doesn't bite, and she's used to being outside."

Theia looked at him. "And what's she gonna eat?"

"She can graze. And she likes turnips," he added with a small smile that tugged at the cut on his lip in a way Theia would have found endearing under different circumstances. "I thought the Free Marchers were avid horse-riders."

Any endearment Theia might have felt was gone in an instant. "I had exactly one lesson as a child. I fell off, broke my wrist, and didn't feel the need to repeat it ever since." She was also packed off to the Ostwick Circle soon after the incident, when she managed to accidentally heal her wrist - her first manifestation of mage-talent, but Cullen didn't need to know that. "I also heard Fereldans slept with their dogs - imagine my disappointment when I learned that wasn't true."

Cullen burst out laughing. Like this, he seemed to her as a different person, someone in whom she had difficulty to see the fanatic she had heard of in stories. Like this, he was just Cullen, walking by her side, not against her, unarmed and open, quick to smile and quicker to blush, with stray sunlight and autumn breeze catching in the golden curls of his hair.

Theia shook that thought out. "So what's the mighty steed's name?" She asked as a means of distraction, only it didn't work half as good as she had hoped since Cullen flushed a bright shade of red and sent her mind reeling over his antics again. He mumbled something with the face of a man who knew he was going to be judged, then he noticed Theia looking at him with her eyebrow raised and sighed.

"Cookie," he repeated.

Theia continued staring. "Cookie."

"Laugh all you want."

"I'm not laughing," Theia said between giggles. "That's actually a rather sweet name for a horse." She chuckled some more. " _Sweet_."

"Ah. Funny," said Cullen, but he did smile at her afterward, and for reasons she could not fathom, it made the laughter catch in her throat. Maybe she imagined it, but there was something soft in the way he was looking at her, perhaps the shared teasing and mirth set something loose in him that took over the serious knight facade he wore by default; he looked so young now, of course Theia knew he could not be older than her, but this Cullen who stared back at her, alleviated from burden, reminded her of the first tremors of spring, fresh and welcome and brave in the face of the last snowfalls, and heavy with expectation.

Cookie strayed from the path to pluck a crab apple from a nearby tree, a reason enough for Cullen to turn his attention elsewhere. For the first time, Theia was glad for the horse. Maybe by the time Cullen looked her way again, the tint to her cheeks would be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is most welcome! Thanks for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So after 6 months... an update :') I have no excuse. I spent the whole summer stressed at work, then I contracted covid at the said work, and now I'm like... whatever. Shit happens, life goes on. But whatever happens, I'll finish this fic even if it's the last thing I do..! I even planned it! It will be 8 chapters total. And I really want to update this more often than....twice per year.........
> 
> Reminder that this story is kind of only loosely based in canon (and especially DA:O canon, which was retconned a lot anyway), so if too much creative license is not your cup of tea.... don't read further.
> 
> Also I'm wildly making everything up as I write, I apologize to any horse-rider out there :'D
> 
> And in case anyone is for music recs to go with a fic, I listened to a lot of Wardruna and Eivør while writing this. And it SHOWS. A lot.

He was infinitely glad to finally leave the sling behind. The last few days he had become so impatient with it and kept trying to move his left arm more and more, much to Theia's displeasure. "You're supposed to rest it for a month," she kept repeating, each time with increased irritation, but Cullen just couldn't resist poking the fixed forearm or clenching his fist to test the tendons, sore from disuse. He kept assuring her he felt fine, especially that one time she caught him trying to saddle Cookie to go for a ride; Theia chastised him so thoroughly then that he felt flustered just thinking about it. At least she let him shave on his own with his arm still bad, otherwise Cullen would have gone mad from the thick unmanageable bush that had sprouted on his face or died of embarrassment if Theia decided to do it for him. He suspected she actually did entertain the idea until he got his shaving kit out and she glimpsed the unforgiving edge of the razor. For once he was glad there was a thing she probably couldn't do.

Because other than that, it appeared Theia could do pretty much anything. Aside from the healing salves and potions she bartered with, she pressed herbs into oils or even made her own soap, not to mention she was more than capable of keeping her little household in running order. Cullen would have probably been of more help to her had he never become a Templar - in the first thirteen years of his life he learned only so much and now the reality of everyday life and providing for oneself had been lost to him when it was the Chantry that had been doing that for him, directing him, until only very recently. He was out of his depth. So when Theia finally, with some reservations, declared his broken arm healed enough to start using it again, he was beside himself. Perhaps now he could at least do menial tasks for her like chopping wood or hauling groceries. After all, he still owed her for his life.

"So, Cullen," Theia said when he was doing good on his debt and helping her clean potatoes for dinner, "would you mind if I asked you something about the Templar order?"

His pulse picked up a bit. He didn't know if he wanted her to ask - it depended on what she wanted to know. They could talk about religion and the Chant, they've done that before, and while their opinions often differed they respected each other. In fact, Cullen would say Theia made him think and reconsider some of his beliefs. Since even some of his fellow Templars called him over-zealous and absolutely unreasonable, that was quite the feat. "You do realize there is an oath and we can't talk about the inner Order dealings with outsiders?"

Theia snorted. "I'm not after Chantry secrets. Let's say I'm more concerned about your health, and since I already patched you up I'm basically your physician, and in order to make sure you are healthy, I should know about any underlying conditions you might have-"

"You want to ask whether I'm addicted to lyrium," Cullen cut over her.

Theia finished cleaning one potato and put it in a pot with the others. "Well, yes," she admitted while looking elsewhere.

Cullen considered it. It wasn't much of an Order secret anymore - everybody knew Templars used lyrium, one way or another. All in all, the question could have been sharper, more intimate, too painful. This one wasn't so bad. "We take the first draught of lyrium when we pass the training, at the initiation ceremony. To help combat magic." His hands were still busy with scrubbing the potatoes clean of dirt. The movement helped him focus. "But a lifelong addiction isn't something that happens overnight."

"But you've had it."

"Yes."

"And you're not craving it?"

This time Cullen looked at her. "You seem to know this to an awful detail."

She jerked her head to study him. "I'm a healer, I've healed Templars. Before you, that is," she reasoned never breaking eye-contact. "Some were... Delirious. Hyper-focused. Violent, without it. You seem somehow different is all."

"Not good enough to fight you mean?"

She flinched. "I didn't say that. I don't even know if the lyrium has any other effect beside the addiction. Ingesting liquid rock is hardly something I would call healthy."

"Mages do it all the time."

"Mages are different. No, seriously," she added when Cullen barked a laugh, "they can burn through it, like it's food. I suppose it has to do with magical abilities, how they draw on the Fade. With a regular person, meanwhile, the lyrium stays in the body." She forgot about the potato-filled pot as she went on about the unknown and disputable lyrium effects on living flesh, excitement tinting her cheeks. Cullen had never seen her so passionate about any topic before. She always seemed reserved, willing to listen and offering her views without even raising her voice, perhaps keeping some to herself. This was unusual. Refreshing.

Cullen kept listening, passive. He noticed how each time she was putting together a particularly thorough argumentation, a little crease formed between her eyebrows and her gaze grew distant as if she was conjuring the exact page of a book from which she had gained the information in the first place. It was endearing. By the time Theia finished her contemplations on lyrium he was transfixed and found he could not really say anything to contradict her; first, because everything she said had a point, and second, because he didn't want her to revert to her usual sedate behaviour.

Only once Theia paused, clearly waiting for his input, did Cullen force himself to talk. "You've really done a lot of research on this, haven't you," he stuttered out at last without a hint of sarcasm.

Her cheeks coloured again and, Maker preserve him, she was lovely. "It's an ongoing interest of mine," she said. Her hands found their way to the forgotten pot and placed it over the fire. Now reminded of it, Cullen deemed the idea of dinner enticing, but his appetite dulled somewhat when the action looked as if it pulled Theia back into the present and her excitement slowly ebbed away. In its wake settled restraint, and now that Cullen thought about it hard, there was caution written all over it. How could he not have noticed that before? He must have looked intimidating to her, a stranger who barged into her life, a Templar who was proclaimed unstable even by his commander. And she took him in, fed him, healed him. Unconditionally. She had the right to know whether he was dangerous to her or not.

"To answer your question," he began after clearing his throat, "I've had lyrium, but I don't need it. The adjustment period is long and I-," ran away, burned every bridge and assumed the triple role of jury, judge, and executioner, "-haven't had enough to form the bond." He ran one hand through his hair, settled it on the back of his neck in a nervous tic he would probably never get rid of. "It's strange, actually," he continued after a pause. "Some senior Templars believe the lyrium brings them closer to the Maker or makes them more perceptive of His plan, but I could never shake the feeling that it was a material dependency. A vice."

Theia watched him now, intently, and he drew strength from it to finish. "Shouldn't our faith be enough?"

Silence stretched between them. The water in the pot bubbled as it boiled. Cullen leaned against the wall. He didn't expect her to reply. When she finally did, it took him by surprise in more ways than one. "Would you think you can control faith?"

"I, no, of course not."

She shrugged. "There's your answer."

*

While Cullen would call himself far from superstitious, he could swear there was something in the woods. Every time he went outside the hairs on his neck stood up from an intangible but unmistakably present sensation. There was definitely a colony of corvids up and about - their cawing and screaming startled him on more than one occasion. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Just birds.

The dreams were another thing. True, his nights were restless as far as he could remember, recently, however, the visions took a turn for the strange. There wasn't only the tower and the demon anymore, there were also trees, falling leaves and white ravens. Once or twice Theia had been there, draped in white, her dark hair flowing freely over her shoulders, a mirage cloaked in the morning mist. She led him somewhere. Leaves crunched under his feet and she kept glancing back at him as if expecting him to turn and flee with each step. Odd, his dream-self thought. Why would he run?

He brought a couple carrots to feed to Cookie before taking her out for a ride. The weather was still good enough to be outside without a proper shed, but Cullen knew he would have to address it soon and make her some sort of a simple shelter. For now the old heavy blanket Theia spared for her was enough, but with the looming rainfalls, it would shortly not do. Just a simple, dry space to keep the elements at bay, maybe just extending the roof of the cottage by a couple yards.

Fastening the saddle, Cullen frowned. Since when did he plan on staying here, so long after he recovered enough to be well on his way?

"You're going out?" A voice shook him back to the here and now.

"Just so she can stretch her legs a bit," he said, patting Cookie's warm flank.

"Don't stray too far, especially beyond the stream. The terrain is harsh there."

"Don't worry," Cullen said. Then an idea occurred to him and his mouth ran with it before he could help it. "Unless you'd like to come along?"

Theia levelled a stare at him. "You know I don't ride," she reminded him.

He shrugged. "I could show you. If you'd like." He could tell his ears were heating and his entire presence turning sheepish. "I thought, it never hurts to have an extra skill. Or maybe not. Forget I asked," he added hastily, turning to Cookie and grabbing her reins.

He wasn't looking at Theia as she came to stand beside him but could absolutely hear the amusement in her voice. "Hm, up close, she doesn't look as intimidating I guess."

"Horses are gentle beasts," Cullen mumbled, watching Theia raise her hand as if to touch the horse but had a change of heart and left it hang awkwardly in midair. "You can pet her," he offered.

Theia glanced at him sideways, yet in the end she pressed her palm to Cookie's muscular neck. The horse in question chose that moment to let out a low, rumbling neigh.

"See, she likes you," said Cullen, some of his former bravado returning.

Theia laughed. "Yeah, right," she mocked but continued petting Cookie anyway. She craned her neck a bit to take in the horse's entire height. "Who decided that clambering up this kind of animal was a good idea anyway? Does no-one like their bones intact?"

"Give it a go and you'll see." Now it was Cullen laughing, and he didn't expect her to take up on the offer if one went by the experience she mentioned, but Theia surprised him. She managed that often, he noted. She stepped closer to Cookie's flank, even deeper into Cullen's space, and moved her hand to the hard leather of the saddle.

"May I?" She said at last, her eyes wide with the question flicking to him.

Two seconds ticked by before Cullen finally translated the meaning, then rushed out 'of course' and stepped back to let Theia mount, staying close enough in case she needed his help. She managed on her own, towering over him once she settled into the saddle; Cullen noticed the stirrups were too low for her to reach, as well as how the skirts of her dress rode up to her knee and exposed a slender stocking-clad calf. He quickly banished that and any related thoughts and set on adjusting the stirrup leathers.

"Well, this is weird," Theia declared, looking around. "I feel like a general assessing his troops. Do you have it that way too?"

He chuckled as he tightened the leather strap by another hole. "No." Once done, he looked up. "Comfortable?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Right." He took the reins, flipped them over Cookie's head and into Theia's hands. She somewhat reluctantly let go of the saddle's pommel but accepted them nonetheless. "It's not difficult, you just have to make sure the horse knows who's in charge here."

Theia's gaze was fixed at Cookie's mane, tense smile on her lips. "I think you're projecting human behaviour on the horse."

"It's true!" Cullen exclaimed, although he had a hard time being offended when Theia was so close he could discern specific fragrances in the herb smell that seemed to always cling to her. There was chamomile, the heady scent of lavender, and a hint of spice - cinnamon? - that tingled in his nostrils. "Nevermind. Now, you need to look forward."

She lifted her eyes to scan the area ahead, and was that embarrassment tinting her cheeks?

"Keep your back straight. Once you're ready to make her go forward, gently tap your heels to her flanks. And to stop, pull the reins in, like this," he showed her the motion. "Got it?"

Theia's lips formed a self-conscious smile. "I've gathered as much. As a child. Then the horse reared up."

Cullen felt a faint and completely irrational pull of anger toward whoever was in charge of her riding lessons back then. "Cookie won't do any such thing. She's a sweet one."

Theia snorted.

"Well, I think you're ready to try if you can tease me about the name."

"I said nothing!" Theia said between bouts of laughter. "But alright. I'll try."

She let out a deep breath and carefully prodded Cookie to a walk. Cullen smiled at her and kept up with them on foot, a step behind to give them enough space. They walked some twenty paces when Theia pulled back the reins and brought Cookie to halt.

"Good," said Cullen from below her. "That's all there is to it."

"Flatterer, I didn't even turn left or right."

"I-," he sputtered, but Theia laughed again and absolved him of reaction. "But thank you, I've been wary of horses since I can remember. Now I see they're not that bad."

As soon as she finished, Cookie decided to have her way and without prodding, set out at a lazy pace toward nearby grass. The sudden motion startled Theia enough to drop the reins and clutch at the saddle in a momentary panic. "Cullen? Cullen! Is this normal?" She called out over her shoulder, scowled at him when she saw him shaking with poorly concealed laughter.

He hurried over in a couple of swift strides, took the reins and let Cookie graze. "I told you, you have to let her know you're in charge. Otherwise she can, and will, play with you like this."

Theia huffed in irritation. "Horses. Just as I was starting to come around, you do this," she theatrically leaned forward as if to hammer the point into Cookie's head, but the mare was busy with the lush forest greens and could not care less for the world.

"You can try later again, once she's had her snack," Cullen tried placating her. "Here, let me," he offered as he noticed Theia making to dismount.

She rolled her eyes. "I can get down on my own."

"I know you can, I just-"

"Yes, yes, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. Alright," she said, swung one leg over Cookie's neck and outstretched her arms, "help me off this savage beast, my knight."

She said it in jest, but all the same Cullen's mind short-circuited at the notion that he could be considered hers. Dumbstruck, he reached for her, put his hands on her waist, she hers on his shoulders - he prayed to Andraste that his freshly healed arm would not give out under the strain, and brought her to the ground. As gravity pulled her to him, her hair fell forward, dark wavy strands tickling the side of his face, and up this close, he felt like standing in a meadow in spring. Chamomile, lavender, cinnamon - those he noticed, and geranium with sage; underneath that, an earthy, head-spinning scent that must have been exclusively Theia's, and, somewhere beyond its smallest particle, lay something - dare he say familiar? - something barely perceptible, something he at this moment could not bring himself to care about, but his subconscious registered it all the same and screamed at him 'beware'. He blushed again, with her this near. Desire. It was desire that tempted him, desire that warranted caution. Desire that could end him.

He settled her on the forest floor. When he dared look, Theia seemed just as uneasy as he were. She slid her hands away, Cullen only faintly aware her touch lingered one heavy second longer than was necessary. He let go of her waist as if burned.

"Thank you, for today," Theia said at last, her voice gentle. "I had fun. I'll leave you to your ride now." She smiled at him before she left.

Cullen stood there for a long while, Cookie sooner got her fill of the grass and forced him into action with a soft neigh. He shook his head and willed his most recent memories to disappear. Still, the mind-numbing lavender scent stayed. Only when he was climbing into the saddle did he remember he had to readjust the stirrups.

*

"So, Cullen," Aoife said before he could say his greetings, "I can tell you're not from around here."

"Hello, I, yes. Is that a problem?"

"Problem?" She asked, amusement twinkling in her eyes. "Not at all! Why would you think that, you silly man?"

He cleared his throat; his nerves kept him from forming proper words with meaning and if Theia hadn't explicitly sent him to buy bread at Aoife's stall, he would have turned and ran by now.

"It's only we do not get much in the way of visitors, or rather interesting visitors, and Theia never tells me anything," she said, putting, in Cullen's opinion, an unnecessary emphasis on the 'tell'. What did she think there was to tell anyway? As far as Cullen was concerned, there was nothing to tell. "But look at me, poking my nose where it clearly doesn't belong. How can I help you, handsome?"

That was enough of an opening he needed. "Yes, can I get a loaf of bread?"

"Of course you can. This one?"

"The bigger one."

Aoife hummed and wrapped it in a linen cloth he had brought for this purpose. "There you go, dear. Please do give your dear lady my best regards," she said, winking as she accepted his coin.

Cullen mumbled something resembling a goodbye and quickly turned away before she could see him flustered beyond belief. Theia should have warned him when she sent him here. That bloody baker. He already knew he was going to overthink that part about 'his dear lady'.

He clenched his jaw; he shouldn't want this. He would find solace in his faith and draw contentment from that. Faith. And reason. Humility.

Theia surprised him as he was putting his shopping into one of Cookie's saddlebags. "I admit the horse can be useful," she said from behind. Cullen startled so hard he almost dropped a bag of apples. "What's wrong with you?

"Nothing. You sold everything?"

She was eyeing him with one eyebrow raised and pursed lips. Cullen steadfastly ignored that. "As a matter of fact, I did, or rather I sold enough."

"Right." He cleared his throat. "Good. That's good."

She wouldn't be fooled. "Aoife told you something, didn't she?"

"What, no - that doesn't matter." His hand shot up to his neck, much to Theia's infinite delight. Wicked woman. "Can we just go now if you're done?"

Theia shook her head and grabbed Cookie's reins. Cullen noted she was getting more comfortable around her, not afraid to reach out to her anymore, although Theia had yet to repeat her attempt at riding her. Neither she nor the mare seemed to mind that. For now, Theia looked content enough to lead Cookie out of the marketplace and, in turn, Cookie content enough to follow.

They didn't make it very far before there was a young woman from the village running to them at breakneck speed, pale fright visible on her face. "Miss healer!" She called out as she ran, "miss healer, please!"

Theia slowed to a halt; Cullen was glad Cookie had enough sense in her to stop a pace behind her too. "What's wrong?" Theia said once the villager reached them.

"My sister," the woman - or, up close, rather a girl - choked out through gasping breaths, "she had a baby two days ago and now she has a fever, we-," she sniffed as her voice broke, "we don't know what to do, the midwife is busy elsewhere-"

"How long has she been feverish?"

The girl wiped a tear that spilled down her face. "Since last night."

"Why didn't you get me sooner?" Theia cried in disbelief as Cullen took Cookie's reins from her. She turned to grab her bag with unsold herbs and poultices from the saddle. "I don't know how long it may take, maybe you should go ahead," she said to Cullen.

"I can wait."

"Cullen, you really don't have to-"

"It's alright, don't worry about me. Go," he insisted.

Perhaps it was a trick of light, but Theia didn't look as pleased about his offer as he would have liked. Before he could think more on it, Theia turned on her heel and ran off with the village girl toward a house with rose bushes at its front.

With his desire to leave the village ruled impossible, Cullen wandered about for the better part of the afternoon. He took Cookie for a little ride in the vicinity, never straying too far in case Theia would emerge from the house, but enough to keep himself occupied for the moment. In a tree alley at the south gate of the village he encountered the boy who brought Cookie in from the hills, but the youngster bolted the second he recognized him. Cullen snorted. It wasn't like he wanted to punish him for horse-theft - he did pay the boy's father a finder's fee after all. On another hand, the boy probably only shared the general consensus of the village; Cullen would have to have been blind to not notice the suspicion with which he was viewed here. The only mystery was whether it was due to him being a Templar or due to him appearing here alongside Theia, who was well-liked and respected. Maybe it was a bit of both.

He returned to wait in front of the house Theia was at as the sun disappeared behind the treetops of the surrounding forest. When dusk settled on the village and cast it in a flat hue of bluish gray, two figures appeared at the front door - the younger sister and a tall man who sank onto the porch and could not be described as anything else than catatonic. The husband, Cullen supposed.

His heart sank.

The girl noticed him standing by the rose bush. Her eyes were red from crying but her cheeks were dry when she walked toward him. "Miss healer sent us away. She said she'll do what she can," she said. Cullen could hear the unspoken 'but'. He nodded, stare fixed at the ground and kept silent. Nothing he could say would help.

A rustling noise caught his attention - on the roof of the neighbouring house landed a lone raven. Must have been one of those he so often heard in the woods, Cullen thought. It groomed its wing, shook its head, paused. Fixed its shiny, beady eyes at the darkening skies. And then Cullen felt it: Slow, faint, but undoubtedly there..

Magic.

His awareness spiked, his entire body tensed.  _ It must be the sorcerers from before!  _ The ones who almost got him killed! Shame he had lost his sword to deliver them justice, but even then he could not leave this be, he had to act, innocent bystanders were nearby, and Theia-

The blood in his veins froze - the magic was coming from the direction of the house where Theia was tending the deathly ill mother.

No time to waste now, he strode past the village girl - she called out to him a question, although the words passed him by - past the rose-bush and round the corner. Surely the apostates were hiding somewhere behind it in a grove or a thicket, way too close to his liking, too close to people who had nothing to do with this. His fingers closed around the handle of a hunting knife he wore strapped to his belt.

Cullen was resolute. He would not let them come any closer.

He crept along the wall until he reached the far corner. Slowly, Cullen looked around it, into the clearing behind the house.

No-one.

With great caution, he stepped out of the shadow and into the open space, eyes scanning the nearby trees and hedges for threat. He focused on it so intently that it took him a moment to register that what drew here in the first place was no longer present. The ionized smell of spellcasting disappeared.

Bewildered, Cullen stood there turning in every direction. This could not be - it was so close! Surely he would have seen someone, heard someone.

Yet all he could see was the descending nightfall with its fanning midnight-blue skirts, and all he could hear was the raven with its bark-like screams.

He let go of his knife, though his conviction was harder to abandon. He was certain there was something in these parts, something in these woods that triggered his unease, that it was not only his imagination or paranoia. Something sinister. However, no matter how convinced he felt, it was still a mere feeling, and that would get Cullen nowhere. He cast one last look at the lengthening shadows and made for the front door again.

He didn't have to see what was going on to know that something was different; as he rounded the corner and the scene unfolded, a surge of hope hastened his step. This time, Theia was on the porch as well - her back was slouched and she looked dishevelled and drained, but she was smiling as she spoke with the girl who was crying again, only this time with relief. The man was gone.

"There you are," Theia said in a way of greetings as the girl disappeared inside.

"All is well then?"

Theia sighed. "As well as it can get. She will live," she added quickly when Cullen looked puzzled. "She can, and will, have a full life. Though not any more kids. Which sounds inconsequential in the face of death, I know." She leaned on the wooden railing. "It's just, had I been here earlier, I could have prevented that."

Cullen took her in as she stood there, so small in the waning light, her shoulders hunched and too much on her mind. He wished he could take some of the weight away, but how? All he knew was fighting and the Chant, but this was not a battle to be decided by blades, and while great wisdom lay in the Chant, Cullen accepted long ago it would not be in his power to draw it out. He wished he had listened to the priests more, back when it mattered. Perhaps then he would have known what to say at times like these.

"You did everything you could," he said at last. "You saved her life." Theia was now looking at him with that inquiring stare of hers she gave him every time he said more than one sentence at a time. He fought hard to pick the right words, then cleared his throat. "I think that's pretty amazing."

She smiled, then the smile morphed into a soft laugh. Cullen could definitely get used to hearing that more often. "Let's go home," she said after a pause.

Before they could leave, the man showed at the door of his house again, offering Theia his family's heirlooms as payment for saving his wife. Theia kept refusing until she begrudgingly accepted ten silvers when it was clear they otherwise would never be on their way. When they finally hit the road, it was well after sundown.

"Are you alright," Cullen asked when Theia stumbled.

"Just tired. And it's so dark already, we soon won't see where we're going."

"Well," he said, "we could ride."

Theia grumbled something, stumbled again, grumbled some more.

Cullen used the opportunity. "Wait," he said and climbed into the saddle. He steadied Cookie in place and, all too aware of Theia's eyes on him, coaxed the mare to sink onto her knees and lower herself to the ground. He learned this trick long ago, but not every horse was partial to it. He was glad that Cookie was. "Here, get behind me."

"You meant it."

"You haven't said 'no'."

Theia stared at him a moment longer as if he grew a second head, but then chuckled and did as he told her. She settled behind him, put her hands on his flanks and Cullen thanked Andraste that she couldn't see his face. "Ready?"

"Sure, go ahead," came the wry reply.

"Hold on tight," he said in a way of warning and signalled Cookie to stand up; as soon as she began moving, Theia's arms encircled his waist to better cling to him, and once Cookie set off in a trod, Theia's grip would not loosen.

Cullen relished it. She trusted him. He could catch a whiff of spirit she must have poured on her hands prior to tending the sick woman, and while her grip remained tight, he could tell she relaxed a little. Halfway home, Theia rested her head on his back, her warmth a comforting presence, and Cullen, somewhere deep down, wished they would never reach their destination.

But they did. As they approached the little hut in the woods, Theia let go of him so he could dismount. With his feet back on the solid ground, he already missed her proximity. He turned to help her off the horseback.

She still rolled her eyes at him, but let him.

"I'll do it," he offered as Theia began unpacking the saddlebags. She stifled a yawn, but didn't argue. She must have been very tired. Before she went inside she squeezed Cullen's forearm with a soft word of thanks.

Nightfall was long past when Cullen was done with untacking Cookie and preparing her for the night. When he brought the saddle inside and closed the door, Theia was already fast asleep on her bed, dressed down to her underdress and hair strewn wild over the pillow. She didn't even remove her stockings or pull the covers over herself, it appeared the only thing she did was lighting a lamp so Cullen would not stumble in the dark. Quietly, he changed for bed, praying he wouldn't disturb her by accident. She looked so at peace. He could watch her forever.

Careful, he pulled the blanket over her sleeping form and made a vow, a different one from those he made as a fresh Templar knight. This one was smaller, particular, probably a little selfish. Very simple, in a way. He would not lose her, not to deranged apostates, nor to the beasts lurking in the forest. As Cullen blew out the lamp, he vowed he would keep Theia safe.

Whatever it took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment, comments make my day <3


	4. Chapter 4

Things were changing.

Most of them were visible to the naked eye from the window in Theia's small kitchen while she was preparing her morning tea. Sunrise bore frost instead of dew, the surrounding hills turned into an auburn monolith and her home was slowly but steadily gathering fallen leaves. Herbs and poultices to treat the common cold occupied most space on her shelves as the reigning season demanded and drizzling rains were just around the corner. If it were to her, Theia would spend her days under a blanket close to the hearth. The departing summer always left her with a sense of bone-deep exhaustion - no wonder some animals chose to dream this time of year away.

Wood rattling outside and a string of muffled curses shook her from her reverie. This wasn't her usual autumn, one spent in solitude, sipping rosehip or seaberry brew to keep her in good health. This was a new season dawning in more than one way. The air of change befell her just like the autumn did the trees, and under that pressure it was increasingly harder to resist the opportunity that had presented itself in Cullen. Perhaps it was her isolated life, perhaps it was Cullen's charm which Theia was certain was accidental on his part, perhaps it was both of these things and something else she could not put her finger on, but on this day of the turning season, Theia did not think twice before stewing the dried leaves and petals of a herb she kept hidden at the back of one seldom used cupboard. One cup a week to subtly alter her body's chemistry. She would drink three, and if in that time nothing would come to pass, she'd give up and never think of it again.

A month ago, she would have despised herself for merely entertaining the thought - Cullen was, for all the good manners he had shown her so far, after all a little mad. The trail that led him to her was without a doubt a trail littered with corpses, corpses that once were people like her. Considering, it might not have been one of her brighter ideas, but lately she saw more of Cullen the man and less of Cullen the Templar. And she was sure he also saw her.

Everything was subject to change - it was the natural order of the world.

Outside in the creeping chill, steam rose from the cup in her hands. Cullen was dressed down to his tunic, standing over a pile of planks he must have dug out from the rubble by the far side of the cabin, staring intently at the edge of the roof.

"Busy?" she asked in the way of greeting, hid her smile behind the tea mug when he startled at the sound of her voice.

He cleared his throat. "I've been thinking of making some sort of a shelter for Cookie, to keep the worst of the weather off her." He picked up a hammer - Theia had no idea she owned a hammer - put it back down next to the wood pile, then looked around as if he regretted he didn't keep it just for something to keep his hands busy. "Nothing complicated, I, uh, I'm afraid I'm not much good with this sort of thing." He looked at her, actually looked at her, not just in her general direction, for the first time since she had stepped outside. "You do not mind, do you? I'm sorry I should have asked you first, it is your house after all."

Theia almost choked on her tea as her shoulders shook in amusement. "It's not like I built this, as you say," she waved her hand at the shabby cabin, "house, Cullen. Modify as you see fit. And I'm certain Cookie will be most pleased."

When he smiled at her his lopsided smile, the scar pulling on his lip just so, she took another swig from the cup, cementing her resolve. She hadn't felt this in a long time, the strange pull toward someone else. She watched Cullen a little longer, through the steam rising from the bitter brew, watched as he got back to work on his little project, abundantly clear that his hands were more used to swordfights than carpentry, but to her it looked all the more endearing. It took courage to do something one never tried before for the sake of what they cared about.

The wind picked up and made her shiver; she turned to leave when she realized whence the wind blew. "Although, you may want to build it on the other side as it usually rains from the west here."

Cullen's cheeks turned redder than a blackthorn bush at this time of year. "Oh."

"Sorry," she added, feeling a little guilty she did not warn him sooner. "Well, I'll be inside if you need me."

In the end she had to go collect him for a late lunch well into the afternoon. If Cullen put his mind to something, he would see it through it seemed - there indeed was an extension of the cabin roof by the time Theia went there again, big enough to ward off the worst of rainfalls for a horse stabled beneath it, and Cullen looked pleased enough with it, especially after he had led Cookie there to see how exactly she would fit in. His cheeks were pink from exertion and the corners of his eyes crinkled when Cookie nuzzled his face.

She could get used to the sight.

*

"Cullen!"

The downpour caught them unprepared. Not that the sky had not warned them - when they left for the stream there were already stray raindrops gliding through the air. Halfway there, when the hiss of water in the treetops had grown louder, Cullen convinced her to return and leave the water-drawing to him. She didn't escape the worst of it - when the cabin was in her sight, Theia's coat was soaked. As she ran up to the door, Cookie gave her an amused look from where she stood, dry and chewing on grain in her new shelter.

"Don't look at me like that," Theia grumbled. Good thing Cullen wasn't there to witness it - he would have been way too pleased if he heard she started talking to the horse as well. Once inside, she stripped from her dripping clothes and dried her hair, stoked the fire while she shivered wearing only thin linen underdress. The rain hummed on, unwavering, swallowing up any other sound, but even then Theia found herself standing in the open doorway and calling Cullen's name in the improbable case he might hear.

"Cullen!" She tried again. She could hear her voice break against the wall of the rain.

It was only after she started to feel warm again when there were familiar footsteps on the other side of the door. Springing back to her feet, she rushed to open it.

"Oh dear."

To say Cullen was drenched would be an understatement. His clothes stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his skull as if someone had emptied a bucket of cold water on his head.

"You should have returned with me, we would have had done without fresh water for a while," she said, taking the water jug from him.

"Well, here it is," he mumbled, placing the bucket heavy with stream-water next to the door and started to tug off his ruined clothes.

Theia turned away. It wasn't like she hadn't seen him shirtless but that was before, when she was firmer in her conviction, when she was sneaking around the painful issue at the core of Cullen's presence.

Of course, the issue remained, but after some practice, she learned to ignore it.

"Here," she offered, a dry towel in hand, "come to the fire before you grow cold."

And Cullen did, stripped down to his smallclothes, taking the cloth from her to wipe at his goosebumps-covered skin, standing close enough to her that she could visualize closing the distance. Would that have been so bad? It wasn't like she planned for this. The circumstances were merely presenting her with a chance she could take, or leave it be and get over it.

Would she be able to do that, until the day Cullen would finally decide to leave?

Looking at him from the corner of her eye ruffling his hair into a damp, curly mess, she knew the answer. She knew she would fail to overlook him and this side of him she had caught herself gravitating toward, and if by some accident she would manage that, it would be only through conjured resentment. That was the one thing she wasn't ready to give, not after all this time, and while she still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night with a sudden spike of panic tearing through her because she could not remember whether she had hidden the Tome on Spirit Personages or sealed away all the documents that could implicate her as a mage, Theia knew that Cullen was of kind nature, if of violent beliefs.

Thoughts come and go, but instincts go far beyond the mind. Instincts are free of the mind's deception. Thus, when Theia stood on her tiptoes to press her lips to Cullen's cheek, just next to the corner of his mouth, it was all she wanted to believe, that they were not an apostate hiding from the Chantry and a mage-hunter on a crusade, but two people brought together by the virtue of time and space with no deeper meaning, their shared co-existence as simple as the kiss she had just chosen to give.

She pulled back. Cullen seemed to be frozen in place, staring at her with wide eyes. He stood rooted to the spot, motionless, wearing next to nothing, and it would have looked all kinds of ridiculous and Theia would have laughed had she not been suddenly so afraid she overstepped and misunderstood and, oh Maker, what if he had somehow seen through her act and would-

"I," she began, her pulse quickening, her mind stuck in a blank paralysis. "I, if you don't-"

Hands on her, holding tight - fear what she had let loose - and she thought this is it, this is where you went too far, pushed too hard. With her voice stuck in her throat and her legs immobile, there was a split second of a true dread welling up inside her but before she could act on it, Cullen was suddenly in her immediate space, solid and undeniable.

It took Theia longer than she would admit to realize that he was kissing her back with the zeal of a man who was alone too long. Her unease dissipated like the morningrise mist; her arms reached up over the broad expanse of Cullen's shoulders and settled there, pulled tight when he lifted her off her feet to seat her on the kitchen table behind her. He kept kissing her like his life depended on it, held her as if she was the centerpiece of his universe, and was that such a foolish thought? He had stayed, after all. They both knew he could have been long gone. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Theia wanted to believe Cullen had stayed not because he didn't know where to go or because he was still weak from his injuries, but because of her.

She shivered as his hands crept under the skirt of her dress, calluses and torn skin rough against her thighs; let out a whimper when Cullen kissed down her throat and his cold nose chilled her at her nape. She had forgotten how it felt to be worshipped, that peculiar pool of molten desire low in her belly that set her blood aflame.

The table tilted and they both startled - there was a sound of water sloshing onto its surface, something else clattered to the floor when Cullen braced himself against it on impulse. Theia chuckled. The wobbly, ancient table was no place for this. She coaxed Cullen to look at her, kissed him again merely because she could, one chaste touch of her lips to his. "Take me to bed?" She framed the demand as a question.

He obeyed, and while it was a little hurried and she suspected Cullen had limited experience in the ways of earthly pleasures, Theia found enjoyment under his weight, her dress clinging to her form in awkward angles after he had pulled at it from every possible direction in order to bare her to him. She pulled him close, close enough that his mere presence threatened to overwhelm her. Lying there in her tiny bed, on a pillow filled with dried lavender to hide any lingering trace of magic, holding onto his shape while he unmade her, it had occurred to her that Cullen was quite unlike anything and anybody else.

Outside the rain poured on, the din of it almost drowning out her voice when it broke on the soft syllables of Cullen's name.

*

Desire demons - the Chantry taught him about those, in such detail it made his skin crawl as a boy. If it was so because they ranked among the more powerful creatures or because the majority of Templars were men and, as was the consensus, more likely to be swayed by the unmistakably feminine form this breed of malevolent spirits chose to possess, he didn't know. The books in the Circle library offered more or less the same description, complete with numerous illustrations to hammer the point home: Caricatures of lush bodies, adorned with heavy jewelry, full lips and heavy-lidded eyes. Temptation personified. Proportions that were just as unnatural as the sin they represented.

As the emotion Cullen now felt.

The sound of rusty hinges nudged him from his sleep and his eyes opened to the sight of Theia kneeling on the bed, still undressed from when she had shed her dress the night before, looking out of the narrow window on the adjacent wall. The gentle autumn sun lent her face an almost ethereal glow, but the faint blush in her cheeks was real, as was the gleam in her eyes, the goosebumps rising on her forearms where the chill from the outside caressed them. She could do nothing and yet she took his breath away, and at this moment Cullen could not view that particular thought without the too-familiar phantom touch of fear.

Still, he stared. At the sloping lines of her body, how they rounded at her chest and belly, at the generous curve of her hip, striped with thin, a shade lighter scars. She was beautiful, nothing inherently wrong about her, and for the first time Cullen contemplated that the Chantry might have lied to him.

She turned her head to look at him and the moment their eyes met he averted his gaze, ashamed that she caught him staring, even though he was sure he saw the corner of her mouth lift up in a knowing smile. Almost immediately came the movement, the mattress dipping under her hands and knees as she crawled up to lie next to him, and when she finally did, pressing her entire length flush against him, all he could do was wrap his arms around her on instinct and lose himself in her again.

*

"Good, now bring her to a gallop."

He didn't know how he convinced her, but he was actually teaching Theia to ride. She was seated in the saddle while he clung to her and the saddle's pommel from behind, directing her.

"Absolutely not."

"Don't be afraid, I've got you."

"It's not that- stop it, that tickles!"

"Then do as I say."

"Cullen!"

"What?" He nuzzled her neck again, tightened his hold on her waist. She turned her head in an uncomfortable angle to look at him, colour high on her face, teeth bared in a smile and her attention reserved only for him. "That's not how you make an argument."

"Is it," he leaned in, his lips brushing hers, "because last night I did it too, and it worked just fine", he said with a grin.

"You are wicked - do they teach that in the monastery too? Or is it just your thing?"

"Beg pardon - you're not exactly in a position to be so crass with me, dear lady."

"I don't believe it. Who are you and what did you do with Cullen, the one who held doors open for me and apologised every other sentence?"

He shifted enough to kiss her, long and sweet. She brought out the best in him, the pieces of the man he was before the Circle Tower, the one who ran with his siblings through golden fields at sunset and believed in the simple binary moral of good and evil and how the Templar order fitted into that picture. With her in his arms Cullen felt like he could do anything. In fact, he was a step from truly believing it.

He pulled away, her taste fresh on his tongue. "You know I wouldn't let you come to harm," he said kissing her temple, her hair tickling his nose. "Try it. I won't let you fall."

She did, and on her second attempt Cookie's trot fastened, her hooves beating out a pattern in the fallen leaves, making them crunch and rustle with every step. Cullen held onto the saddle, his other arm a reassuring weight around Theia's waist. She still was a little tense, unaccustomed to the reality of a horse's flight, of its rhythm and its speed, holding onto the reins tighter than she had to as they raced through the silent woodland, the beaten path before them as straight as an arrow. The wind was chilly, a testament to the departed summer, and it blew Theia's hair into his face. He wouldn't change it for the world.

They came onto a clearing when Theia yelped and sharply pulled the reins to stop; as Cookie forced her legs to a grinding halt, Cullen almost tumbled off her back - the only thing that saved him was his vice-like grip on the saddle and his knees digging into poor Cookie’s flanks.

"So sorry, master Eoin!" Theia squealed before Cullen could even see what was going on.

"She says 'sorry'!" Dear Miss, you nearly ran my nephew over," said a large, bearded man who was glaring daggers beside a smouldering charcoal pile.

Cullen straightened. Some sort of a dormant urge kicked in and when he looked at the charcoal man with a vicious scowl and a protective hand on Theia's slender frame, he knew he stemmed the tide of any further complaints.

"I'm truly sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Nah, don't worry about it, lass. No harm done," Eoin grumbled. He waved to the other charcoal burners. "What're you staring at, get back to work! Len, if you soiled your pants, you'll worry about that at home - all this wood won't burn itself you know."

Cullen helped her to turn Cookie around to head back home. As the clearing disappeared behind the surrounding trees, he could no longer help himself and snorted - his amusement only grew when Theia started laughing with him as well.

"This isn't even remotely funny!" She chastised him.

"Why are you laughing then?"

"Oh, shut up," she exclaimed between giggles but leaned into his chest all the same. "Anyway, I think I've had enough for today," she said, twisting herself in the saddle so she could look him in the eye. "Can we switch?"

He was climbing off the horse before she finished the sentence, helped her dismount and as soon as she had fallen into his arms he seized her in a lingering kiss; her lips were soft, her mouth warm, her clinging form a promise of a night spent in her embrace, and her sigh stranded in the space between them after they broke apart burned itself into his memory.

*

As the All-souls eve drew nearer, his dreams came more often and more vivid than ever before. Not one night would pass without a vision and a week wouldn’t go by without a night terror jerking him from his sleep. That in particular was something Cullen was ashamed of since he was falling asleep with Theia in his embrace and she didn’t get to have a good night’s sleep with him flailing over half of the bed. Yet she never told him to move on the floor, or anything really. She held him until the morning as if it were the most natural thing to do.

To Cullen, it was astounding. He had given up on himself a long time ago, accepted the fact that he would never be the same again and embraced the nightmares as his punishment for his inability to stand against the things which caused them. If he had the choice, he wouldn’t tolerate his existence. Somehow, she did - and more, but that was something Cullen’s mind had yet to wrap around.

This night he dreamed of the tower again, of the stale air heavy with death, of the shimmering confines of his prison, of the thoughts that were not his own crawling inside his head like caterpillars to eat at him until they outgrew their form and took flight as a fresh swarm of madness. His throat was parched and raw from screaming, his hands scraped, his eyes stinging. Voice no longer working, Cullen was mouthing the words of the Chant to anchor himself, to grasp at its familiarity when everything else was so foreign.

But the Chant offered solace no more. There was no hope.

A new presence came through to him - surely it would be the demon, the very image of the one that tortured him at Kinloch, made him see things that both were and were not real so many times that he could no longer tell whether he were awake or dreaming. Cullen gritted his teeth - he would meet it upright, face to face, ready to die. At least then it would be over, no more deception, only the certainty of nothingness. He heaved himself to his feet, head spinning from exhaustion, stumbled to the accursed barrier that kept him stranded in this dreadful place-

The barrier was gone. So was the tower - the still air swept away by a cool night breeze, the unyielding stone floor that made his whole body ache swapped for the plush ground of an autumn forest, the confining walls stripped to their bone in the form of the stone-circle surrounding him, but from this structure he could escape, he would escape. Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the demon - but in its place stood her.

She looked as she always did in his dreams, only this time there was something different about her, otherworldly. Cullen knew she was beyond his reach, even if she stood right there in front of him. Time seemed to stand still around her, and her eyes were emotionless.

He took a step forward. When the apparition didn't vanish, another. And another, until he was close enough to touch. A raven cawed overhead. Theia avoided his eyes.

"There is no greater threat to a man than desire." Even here her voice struck a chord somewhere deep inside him.

He caressed her cheek. "Is not love a blessing?"

Theia stood there silent and still as the encircling stones. "If it is," she said at last, "are you ready to give it?" She met his gaze with the last words, and Cullen froze in cold, mind-numbing fear when it was the demon's inkwell eyes that stared back at him.

He woke up with a shout, sitting up so abruptly his vision sparked. His shirt stuck to him where he sweated through it and the sudden silence rang in his ears. His lungs started working again, pumping air in only to punch it out in hoarse gasps. His shaking hands found their way up to his head, cradling it when it had grown too heavy with the tattered memories of the nightmare, muffling the uncontrollable sounds his throat made in clammy palms.

Through the darkness cut a familiar voice calling his name; Cullen startled at the similarity to the one that frightened him so a mere moment ago, but here it was raw from sleep and warm and resonant and so unmistakably human.

He couldn't respond, not yet, not with the raging wildfire in the back of his throat and his mind reeling. He clenched his jaw, willing himself to regain some control when her hands came to rest on his back, rubbing circles to soothe him.

"It's alright, I'm here," Theia murmured in his ear, wrapping her arms around his middle, pulling him to her chest. "It's just me."

Cullen shook with each exhale. Slowly he dropped his hands to his lap, counting the breaths he took as Theia rocked him in her embrace. The room was cloaked in darkness, daybreak still hours away. "I'm sorry," he said flatly when he deemed himself calm enough to speak.

Theia tightened her hold, her head a comforting weight on his shoulder; at the action tears threatened to break him anew. "Come here," she said after a while, coaxing him to lie next to her again, and Cullen went willingly - at this point he would do anything for her after all she had done for him, even if it was something so incomprehensible as Theia wanting him to stay. She drew him close, pulled the blanket around his shoulders - only now he noticed that he was trembling. He buried his face to the crook of her neck, warmth and the heavy scent of lavender taking over his senses. She was running her fingers through the sweat soaked mess that was his hair and like this, Cullen could almost start forgetting what drove him to her embrace.

Almost.

"You know, you talk an awful lot in your sleep," Theia whispered to him, her tone lighter than earlier as if to tease him, "I just wish you'd talk this much while awake."

And perhaps it was because of the nature of the latest nightmare, or perhaps because he had not spoken of the incident to a living soul before, or perhaps because of the way Theia held him as if he was something fragile but not broken, Cullen wasn't sure, but that night he opened his mouth to speak and it was as if a dam broke and all the pent up anger and pain and fear came pouring out like a flood. He recounted to her the events at Kinloch, his imprisonment, the demon, the blood magic - he told her everything, hugging her tightly with the frantic resolve of a drowning man. He couldn't even tell when he'd started crying, shuddering sobs tearing through his chest strong enough to make his ribs hurt. It was as if no time had passed since his capture, the bleak reality of it still fresh and raw in his mind, and he felt like he was rubbing salt into the wound, but a part of him was so desperate to let Theia know the truth that the words kept coming, the sentences, stilted and stiff, kept forming, and by the time he was finished, it was as if a cloud lifted and he could see the clear skies after a lifetime of stumbling through mist.

The font had run dry.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Theia said at last, her voice small, and Cullen's heart fluttered at the sympathy he could hear there. She still was holding him so tight - nothing he said had changed that. "You're safe here. Nothing here will harm you."

And he believed her - oh, how he believed her.

"Thank you for trusting me with this, Cullen."

He swallowed. "Will it ever stop?" He didn't care how helpless that made him sound.

Nails scratching at his scalp. "There's nothing in this world that time could not heal," she said with such conviction that Cullen took it for the undeniable truth. Perhaps this was the time when the tide would turn and slowly ebb away. What a beautiful thought.

The sleep that claimed him soon after was the most peaceful he had since joining the Order.

*

"For the All-souls eve."

Theia was looking at him with her eyebrow raised. "Is that a Fereldan thing?" She asked when he did not explain right away.

He set the flickering lantern on the nail he just hammered to a beam of the cabin's roof. "Traditionally it's the day we honor the souls of the departed who may on this day return to the world of the living. My mother always used to say that it's the night of fiends and witches and when she needed me and my brother to stay home, she scared us with the stories of the heartless Yule Queen and her hunters. Isn't it celebrated in the Free Marches too?"

"Well, there's the Allhallowtide, but it's all very formal and religious."

He chuckled. "You make it sound like you're all pagans."

"Oh, definitely no, I just believe more in hard proof and science. Healthy skepsis." She stood next to him, watching the small candle-fire bravely shining as if it could ward off winter itself. "Do you believe it? That part about monsters and ghostly royals?"

"The Yule Queen," he corrected her with a laugh. "As a boy, of course I did. But to tell you the truth, some Templars in the Chantry believed that on All-souls eve the Veil grew thin and demons could easily cross from the Fade, due to the constellations and earth's magnetism and some other things. That's a rational explanation enough, is it not?" He looked at her awaiting a witty retort or an amused snort, but his smile faded when he saw her with eyes downcast. Her hair hung free down the sides of her face and cast a solemn shadow on her usually bright features. "What's wrong," he asked, voice gentle, tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, "are you sad?"

She smiled, but he could tell it was forced. "Nothing." She shook her head. "I tend to forget you're... Fereldan."

"That bad?"

"I didn't mean- no, it's not bad." She squeezed his hand but the reassurance felt hollow when she still would not meet his eyes. "It's nothing, really. I think I'll go for a walk."

She let go of him and walked away so fast that Cullen failed to respond, be it with words or action, and soon she disappeared out of his sight. He supposed everyone needed to be alone, from time to time.

The noon passed by and Cullen thought nothing of it. Then the day tipped over to the late afternoon and with the light running out, there was a tingling unease gnawing at his consciousness. Soon it would be dark and there was no sign of Theia yet - no footsteps trudging through the foliage, no raven's scream to alert of an intruder, no hand on the doorknob to make the hinges squeak. It was the eve of All-souls when visions came true and folktale devils crept out of myth to roam the world from twilight through the night until the dawning of the morning sun, and Theia was in the woods. Alone.

It wasn't as much of a decision as it was a compulsion to start searching. First he checked the immediate area, the lush grove surrounding the cabin, the meadow where she would go collect herbs, then the house again, with no success. He pulled Cookie out of her shed and rode for the brook, saddle-less in his haste, knowing Theia was fond of the place, but as he reached it, and even after riding some distance up the stream, she was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe he should turn back. There was virtue in patience, after all. It wasn't like this was the first time Theia went out on her own, surely she would return - for all he knew, she might have already been home setting a kettle on the stove. Cullen recognized the voice of reason, went as far as acknowledging it, but in his situation, only an echo of it remained and in his mind he would never know peace if he didn't learn where she had gone to.

A memory of Theia telling him not to cross the stream came unbidden. Could that be where she went - knowing he would not try to follow her?

He gritted his teeth; while he was more than ready to give her privacy, he wasn't willing to let her wander the wilderness at night alone. Digging his heels into Cookie' flanks, he urged her forward, into and through the running water and sped off into the darkening woods on the other side.

It was quieter here, as if the animals either avoided these parts or passed through only in silent reverence of the ages old oaks and beeches. The undergrowth was bushy and dense that Cookie had trouble moving forward; at a measured pace, they waded deeper into the decaying heart of the forest, bare tree branches outstretched as if to grab and drag them off into a dark corner never to see the light of day again. The wind picked up and tore through the withered crowns of the mighty trees above, whispering of cold and dread and barren winter.

Spirits wandered the world tonight, through midnight until the tattered dawn. He should hurry.

The trees have thinned, and life returned in the shape of a sleek black raven crying out in surprise at the sight of the strange visitors. Cullen was about to turn back in the general direction of the stream when he saw the heavy silhouettes, each one of them situated equal distance from the other, standing there as they had stood for a thousand years and a smothering weight of recognition fell upon him, for this was the very same circle of ancient stones he had seen so often in his bewildered dreams.

Cautious, he dismounted. In the dim evening light, the entire clearing looked like a desolate dreamscape that defied reality - true, the stone was solid and immediate, unmistakable in its gravity, but the air around it was sizzling, blurred where it should have been clear and charged with a kind of otherworldly energy as though it channeled the raw power of the Fade itself.

And then came the glow.

Cullen had never seen anything like it, not even after everything in the Circle Tower went mad and all hell had broken loose. A green nebula hung in midair at the centre of the stone-ring, faintly crackling with unspent power, lending the immediate surroundings a sickly jade tint. It danced and wreathed, hypnotic, beckoning him in its passivity. Slowly, Cullen entered the ring; he could feel the change in his bones, it was as if the stones conducted an invisible current with the strange light being its output or the source, depending what he believed was the root cause. As the change washed over him he knew it for what it was, so similar to when the Veil tore at the Tower, only now it was not forced open by the hand of a crazed sorcerer but by the power of time and space itself. It was clear. The forest, the alignment of the stars, the earth - all have done their magic and pulled at the barrier separating this world from the next, only they had pulled too hard and offered a different view. Or a passage.

Every child knew there were ghosts on the All-souls eve. Cullen, in good conscience, could not let it stand - he was a Templar, the first and last line of defense of the natural order from horrors of the unknown. Drawing nearer, too aware of all the things that could go wrong, he eyed the green spectre with suspicion, ready for any change in its behaviour. In its centre, he thought he glimpsed a sliver of the Beyond.

He was a Templar. This was his sacred duty. Reaching out, he drew on his deep reserves, on every particle of residual lyrium in his bones, on his unwavering spirit, on a silent prayer, and felt for the shifting shape, for its tendrils drawing on the Fade, its gassy, forever-changing body, for the raw edges where the rift had torn the fabric of this world apart.

Breathe in. He could do this - he had to. He was a knight of the Templar order. Breathe out.

Clenching his fist, he forced his will upon the apparition, commanded the power holding it together to subdue and give out. It wasn't much different from draining a mage's spellpower, albeit less tangible and perhaps a bit foreign. He could see the tear shrinking - it was working! Now only to hold it a little longer.

Out of the blue the light exploded into wild magic and Cullen was knocked to the ground. His ears rang from the burst and black spots obscured his vision, and the untamed force came pouring out, the cold that engulfed him making his skin crawl. Disoriented, he pushed himself to his knees, not really knowing what to do next. The tear was growing ever larger, the light sharper, the white noise of the other side swallowing up all sound - surely now it was only a matter of time before the first demon would make it through and maul him, and Theia - he failed to find her.

He failed her.

Mobilizing all strength he had left, Cullen got to his feet when the Veil tear hissed and a new kind of light started coming out of it, ever brighter and more yellow than green. He shielded his eyes - the scent of burnt ozone and sulfur prickled in his nostrils - then a loud burst rent the air and after that, only heavy silence remained. In confusion, he lowered his hand.

Opposite to him at the edge of the stone-circle, so small compared to the massive structure, stood Theia with her hand outstretched, her face an unreadable mask, and Cullen felt a steep chasm growing inside him because the air around her was alive with a specific, unknown, unique primeval energy, but whatever it was, he had no doubt that in its essence, in its despicable core, it was still magic.

"You." Hers, only hers, nobody else's magic. "You're a mage."

Theia avoided his gaze. The aura had weakened but a trace of it stayed, a bitter taste in Cullen's mouth.

"I don't understand," he stepped forward onto the scarred patch of ground where the tear had been a moment earlier, hearing his voice as if from afar. "All this, you; you knew all along who I am-"

"Cullen." A plea.

"How could you lie to me?"

"You would have killed me!"

Later, when he played this scene in his head, Cullen liked to imagine he said something, anything, and that he was the victim here. He liked to think he made a reasonable decision and Theia made her own irrational one. He liked to pretend this all was a mistake in Theia's judgment and on her part. As they stood there, rooted to the spot in the lengthening shadows, Theia hanging on his reaction, waiting so clearly for a denial, Cullen did the one thing he was not supposed to do.

He hesitated. And in that moment they both knew the truth.

She turned on her heel and ran. Cullen managed to shout her name after her, his legs moving of their own accord, but he stood no chance. Barely out of the stone-circle Theia called on her powers again, her form changing in the blink of an eye and where first a woman stood, a white raven now soared up to the dying sunset, above the trees and out of his reach. Frantic, he paced on the forest floor, heart beating fast, lungs out of breath, his vision blurring having nothing to do with the impending darkness, looking around every tree, in all directions, everywhere.

But she was gone.

*

The cabin was cold without her.

The day that came next felt more to Cullen like a waking dream than present. Nothing really changed - there were still her clothes, her half-finished work on the desk, her hairbrush, except the most important aspect of those things was missing. The pillow still smelled of wild flowers and his skin itched where she had touched it a mere day ago. There was silence Cullen hadn't heard in a long time and it pointed out in terrifying detail how sorely unprepared he was to live with it again. Perhaps he would get used to it, in due time.

Time would heal all wounds. The thought was poison in his mind.

While daylight remained, he searched the vicinity in deluded hope he would see her again, then hated himself that he was so concerned for a mage of all things. A mage! How ridiculous - she would do well on her own. They were capable of many things, Cullen had experienced that first hand. He shouldn't, _wouldn't,_ care at all. There was no room for the likes of them in his world.

But there was plenty of room for Theia, and that room now stood empty.

As he returned to the cabin, one foot already inside, it struck him how eerily quiet the woods were. Frowning, Cullen stepped outside once more, stared at the nearby trees, then picked up a stone and flung it at the crown of a nearby oak. It hit the wood, clattered to the ground and with a hiss landed onto the rotting foliage.

Silence.

All of the birds he had so often heard left.

*

At dawn of the fifth day since the incident Cullen awoke from uneasy sleep, clutching a blanket that was a poor substitute for a warm body he had grown so used to, the overpowering scent of lavender and chamomile burning in his nose, and in the pale morning light seeping through the frost-covered window Cullen realized Theia was not coming back. The thought left him numb, lying in bed until well past sunrise, when a knock came at the door.

It made him jump. Surely she wouldn't knock to enter her own house? That, or maybe he had imagined it.

Another knock.

Cullen got up. Jittery, he crossed the room to open the door.

Outside was a pair of young girls, barely more than children, the excitement he felt a second ago transforming into bubbling anger. They tensed when they saw him, eyes wide and questioning, standing close together as if they were afraid of facing him alone.

"Hello, uhm," said the shorter one, trying to sneak a look past him, "is miss healer here?"

He scowled. "No."

"It's just, we need-"

The anger reared its ugly head. "Get out! Now!" He snarled, and the girls startled and backed away in fear-

_Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._

As fast as it sprung to life the rage wilted and let go of him, leaving only tremors and deep-seated humiliation. What was he doing here - scaring children? Innocents he had sworn to protect, from demons, from magic?

From Theia.

He slammed the door shut, breathing hard, leaning his forehead against the rough wood. Maybe, just maybe, he was meant to protect them from himself. The Maker had some sense of humour.

Cullen wasted no more time. He packed his scarce belongings and enough food, took everything that might be useful and stuffed it into saddlebags. He dressed for the crisp weather, took coin from the lockbox where Theia kept her meagre savings, filled his waterskin and within the hour, he was ready for the road and tacking up Cookie. He was just about to mount when voices interrupted him.

From the direction of the village several men were approaching, some of them armed with hatchets or long knives, most of them not. At their head he recognized the charcoal burner foreman - Eoin, Theia had called him - and some other faces from his trips to the village. There was no mistaking it - they were here for him.

Something else caught Cullen's attention, a smooth drifting speckle of white. The season's first snow.

"Where is she," Eoin demanded. Had Cullen been a lesser man he would have cowed at the searing hot loathing in that voice.

He did not speak.

"Where is she - what have you done to her? Is she inside?"

With a calm he did not think he could muster, Cullen formed a curt reply. "I don't know."

The villagers growled like a frenzied wolfpack. "Liar!" Eoin shouted, red in the face. "Ever since you showed up here we knew you were going to be no good!" He stepped forward, stopping only after Cullen slowly put his hand on the hilt of his knife in warning. "That lass was too good for you, for any of us, and now you're here and she is gone, so I'm asking you one last time, what have you done to her?!"

He never flinched. "The Chantry would not look kindly on you for harbouring apostates."

One of the men - Cullen recognized him as the one who had returned Cookie to him - spoke: "I told you he was a mage-hunter sent here to kill her, I told you-"

And just like before, emotion got the better of him; it boiled and sputtered at the injustice he now suffered, and Cullen snapped. "I have done nothing to her! She left."

While he knew it in his heart to be true, saying it out loud was unreal.

"She's gone," he repeated, convincing himself.

Before the villagers could stop him he swung up into the saddle and spurred the horse forward. The wind stung on his cheeks, in his eyes, the disintegrating forest whirled past as the snow kept falling from the leaden clouds. He sped westward, away from the cabin, the village, the memories of her, leaving it all behind.

Cullen did not lie when he said he had done nothing to her. He only had done so much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this fic was to end here but it didn't because I'm too much of a sap to leave it like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading so far! Liked it? Then feel free to go wild in the comments section. Also I'm up on [mastodon](https://mastodon.art/@eli_arts) if you wanna chat!


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